Children & the Law Blog

The Criminal Justice Institute and the Center for Children, Law & Policy is hosting a symposium today, Achieving Quality in Indigent Defense–Proposals, Prototypes, and Policymaking at the University of Houston Law Center. Video of the proceedings will be available on the CCLP website shortly, but this post is to examine the effects of indigent defense systems on children.

The conference has begun with Reflections on the Right to Counsel after 45 Years: Texas and the Nation, Prof. Norman Lefstein, Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus, Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis, who starts with the question - if we imagined indigent defense from the ground up, how would it look? A few characteristics of this imagined system:

• Certification of lawyers, comparable to medical residency.
• Meaningful oversight and supervision (observations, file reviews, peer review, mandatory CLE)
• Client selection of counsel (something that resembles the private practice of law, where zealous advocacy of attorneys for the indigent promoted because livelihood depends on repeat business; judges don’t appoint prosecutors, they shouldn’t appoint defense lawyers; envisioning something like the English system)

Indigent Defense has too often lost sight of two principles from ABA Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System, Feb. 2002

1. The public defense function, including the selection, funding, and payment of defense counsel, is independent.

2. Where the caseload is sufficiently high, the public defense delivery system consists of both a defender office and the active participation of the private bar.