Americans’ right to legal counsel protects all of us against the government’s power to lock us away, confiscate our possessions, and deny us the ability to earn a living.

Six decades after the Supreme Court’s decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, the promise of that ruling remains unfulfilled.

2022CV001027 (Brown County Cir.)

In response to the ongoing crisis in Wisconsin where thousands of people facing criminal charges are waiting for lawyers to be assigned to their cases, NACDL, our Wisconsin affiliate (WACDL), the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU School of Law, and the Chicago office of Winston & Strawn filed a lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in Brown County (Green Bay), one of the many counties in the state struggling to find lawyers for every eligible individual, leaving people waiting weeks, months, and in some instances, a year or more, for a lawyer.

The Intersection of Race and Poverty: Challenging Debtors' Prisons presented by Nusrat Choudhury, Deputy Director, Racial Justice Program, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Race Matters I: The Impact of Race on Criminal Justice
September 14-15, 2017 | Detroit, MI

Bond: Practice presented by Colette Tvedt, criminal defense attorney, Denver, CO

Race Matters I: The Impact of Race on Criminal Justice
September 14-15, 2017 | Detroit, MI

Bond: Policy presented by Brandon Buskey, Deputy Director for Smart Justice Litigation, Criminal Law Reform Project, American Civil Liberties Union

Race Matters I: The Impact of Race on Criminal Justice
September 14-15, 2017 | Detroit, MI

This month Sara Garber reviews Fixing Legal Injustice in America: The Case for a Defender General of the United States by Andrea Lyon.

While there are a variety of ways in which public defense is provided, to fulfill their constitutional obligations systems must have an infrastructure which ensures timely access to resourced, skilled, and zealous advocates and which operates as an independent and equal partner in the community's criminal legal system.

Nearly a half million people, or approximately three percent of Florida's adults, pass through the state's misdemeanor courts each year. Most are found guilty. The average court appearance lasts as little as three minutes. [Released July 2011]

A report by the Sixth Amendment Center, commissioned by NACDL and supported by the NACDL Foundation for Criminal Justice and Koch Industries. [Released October 2016]

and Attorney Workload Standards

The Sixth Amendment's promise that every person accused of a crime is entitled to counsel is a hollow one when the attorney appointed lacks the time and resources to provide meaningful representation. In order to determine whether defenders in Rhode Island are facing a caseload crisis, NACDL, the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants (ABA SCLAID), and the accounting firm of BlumShapiro undertook an assessment of the Rhode Island Public Defender system ("RIPD"). [Released November 2017]

When a person is accused of a crime, the U.S. Constitution guarantees that person the right to a lawyer even if they cannot afford one. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed this basic principle more than a half century ago in Gideon v. Wainwright, and in subsequent cases that expanded the right to misdemeanor prosecutions. Yet this right is violated every day in South Carolina’s magistrate and municipal courts – collectively referred to as summary courts – where scores of people are convicted, sentenced, and sometimes incarcerated, without having been represented by counsel. [Released April 2016]

The crisis in public defense in Louisiana has been well-documented by the news media over the past several years. Stories of overloaded public defenders, unrepresented individuals languishing in jail, and mass pleas have shocked the nation’s conscience, but the system’s shortcomings have long evaded reform. However, much coverage of the public defense crisis in Louisiana, the state with the highest incarceration rate in the nation, has focused its attention on the consequences of the crisis rather than its causes. [Released March 2017]

Researchers systematically gathered data from magistrate and municipal courts in five counties. The research confirms that there is a pervasive lack of procedural justice and fairness in these courts. Far too many accused persons are not advised of basic constitutional rights, and even when they are, those rights are not respected. [Released January 2017]

In 2012, NACDL collaborated with the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants (SCLAID) to host an innovative project to foment broad-based reform. This report highlights the wide-ranging discussion and innovative proposals for reform discussed during the focus group. [Released January 2013]

On April 6 and 7, 2017, NACDL, the Foundation for Criminal Justice, the Monroe Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics at Hofstra University’s Maurice A. Deane School of Law, the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, the Center for Court Innovation, and the State of New York Unified Court System convened a conference designed to explore the impediments to and reforms needed to ensure effective justice in all stages of the criminal process, with a particular focus on the judicial role in high-volume misdemeanor courts. [Released December 2017]