Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel

  • In Gideon v. Wainwright, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the government must provide a criminal defense lawyer for any accused person who cannot afford one. But for too many people, Gideon's promise remains unfulfilled. In Texas, there are no statewide guidelines about who is entitled to a court-appointed lawyer. Instead, counties create their own rules that create serious gaps in constitutional protection. Getting Gideon Right investigates the financial standards that determine an accused person's eligibility for appointed counsel in Texas county courts. The report reveals a patchwork of county court policies that are both complex and severe.
     
    Davies, A. L. B., Skiles, B., Metzger, P. R., Gursoy, J., & Romo, A., , Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center (April 2022). 
     

  • Most Americans expect that if they are arrested, they will quickly appear before a judge, learn about the charges, and have an attorney assigned to defend them. The reality is vastly different. After arrest, a person can wait in jail for days, weeks, or even months before seeing a judge or meeting an attorney. This report chronicles the resulting initial appearance crisis and highlights its devastating consequences. More importantly, it provides policymakers and advocates with actionable recommendations.

    Metzger, P., Hoeffel, J., Meeks, K., & Sidi, S., , Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center (October 2021).

  • How will the COVID-19 pandemic impact indigent defense budgets in the United States? During times of fiscal stress, redistributive policies—policies that use taxpayer funds to support people who pay little or no taxes—are particularly susceptible to spending cuts. However, during the Great Recession of 2007-2009, Texas' indigent defense spending was generally stable, even in the hardest-hit counties.

    Andrew Davies, Victoria Smiegocki, and Hannah Hall, , __Ohio St. J. Crim.Law __ (2021) (forthcoming). 

  • This conversation examined the challenges of providing indigent defense services in rural areas of the United States where lawyers are scarce and long distances separate courts, law offices, and jails. Deason Center researchers Dr. Andrew Davies and Dr. Victoria Smiegocki discussed their research on the topic with criminal defense attorneys working in rural areas.

  • One-Pager: Greening the Desert

    Greening the Desert brings a criminal justice lens to the phenomenon of STAR legal deserts—vast areas with few, if any, practicing attorneys. This one-pager highlights key strategies to green these criminal law deserts. The full Greening the Desert report offers detailed examples and case studies that describe successful implementation of strategies to recruit, train, and retain STAR justice practitioners. An explores the national landscape and chronicles how two STAR criminal lawyers found their way to rural practice.

    Greening the Desert (One-Pager), Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center (September 2020).

  • This webinar explores strategies and initiatives to recruit, train, and retain STAR criminal justice practitioners. Lawyers describe their own journeys to STAR criminal practice and join researchers in a discussion of best practices for greening STAR legal deserts.

  • Report: Greening the Desert

    Greening the Desert brings a criminal justice lens to the phenomenon of legal deserts in STAR communities—vast areas with few, if any, practicing attorneys. The report explores STAR criminal justice communities and describes strategies and initiatives to green these criminal law deserts. Using case studies, the report offers concrete examples of successful innovations. It also includes cautionary notes about risks that may arise with the implementation of strategies to recruit, train, and retain STAR practitioners. A companion   explores the national landscape and chronicles how two STAR criminal lawyers found their way to rural practice.

     

     Metzger, P., Meeks, K., & Pishko, J., Greening the Desert: Strategies and Innovations to Recruit, Train, and Retain Criminal Law Practitioners for STAR Communities, Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center (Sept. 2020).

  • Article: Criminal (Dis)Appearance

    Amid the national conversation about criminal legal reform, this article is the first scholarly work to address the initial appearance crisis. Criminal (Dis)Appearance describes an epidemic of detention-without-process and explores the legal landscape that produced it. The article describes the Supreme Court's commitment to a narrow Fourth Amendment jurisprudence and critiques the Court's rejection of early-stage criminal due process rights. The authors explain how substantive and procedural due process establish the right to a prompt and thorough initial appearance. 

    Pamela R. Metzger and Janet C. Hoeffel, 88 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 392 (2020).

  • Crises expose flaws in our criminal legal systems. This program explores how Hurricane Katrina launched public defense reforms and asks whether the COVID-19 pandemic can spark similar changes.

  • On the Ipse Dixit podcast, Dr. Andrew Davies discusses his article, Gideon in the Desert: An Empirical Study of Providing Counsel to Criminal Defendants in Rural Places. Dr. Davies describes the challenge of providing counsel to rural defendants and identifies traits associated with rural counties that are more successful in meeting the Sixth Amendment's mandate.

  • Listen to Deason Center Director Pamela Metzger discuss how COVID-19 exacerbates the initial appearance crisis.

  • Listen to Pamela Metzger discuss why people disappear in jail for days, weeks, or months without seeing a judge or attorney with Brian L. Frye on .

  • Trequelle Vann-Marcouex was just 18 years old when he hanged himself, after being trapped in the Wood County, Wisconsin jail, with no attorney to defend him.

    Just days earlier, Vann-Marcouex  for the first time after his arrest. A teenager standing alone in his baggy jumpsuit, Vann-Marcouex asked the judge for help. He faced robbery charges and more than 60 years in prison.

    He thought he would get a public defender and a shot at the equal justice he’d heard about in high school civics class…

    Pamela R. Metzger, , USA Today, Dec. 13, 2019. 

  • Drive from Amarillo, one of the biggest cities in West Texas, to Armstrong County, Texas, and you will enter a different world. Armstrong County, with fewer than than 2,000 people, is largely agricultural and, like many rural counties, substantially poorer than its urban neighbor, with a small local budget to match.

    And, a  issued this month points out that the very sparseness of Armstrong County means that people arrested for crimes tend to have a very different experience with the criminal justice system than their urban Amarillo neighbors…

    Pamela R. Metzger, , Dallas Morning News, Nov. 24, 2019. 

  • Sen.  (D-Calif.) recently introduced the , which would boost resources for public defenders across the country. It offers a $250 million grant program on top of case limits for public defenders.

    A longtime prosecutor, Harris understands that a fully functional and adequately funded public defender’s office is essential to the pursuit of justice and for ensuring safer communities and families...

    Pamela R. Metzger, , The Hill, May 22, 2019.