March 18th marked the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), the landmark case that changed the landscape of indigent defense. In Gideon, the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment requires states to provide an attorney to indigent defendants charged with a serious crime. Nine years after Gideon, in Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25 (1972), the court extended the right to counsel to defendants facing a potential loss of liberty in criminal cases without regard to whether the offense was classified as a felony.
As communities across the country celebrate Gideon‘s 50th anniversary and reflect upon the five decades since the decision, we should acknowledge that the promise of Gideon - that every person charged with a crime be capably defended and that our legal system will do justice to the poor and the rich alike - remains unrealized. The indigent defense system in this country is severely underfunded and overburdened. As U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder explained: "Too often, when legal representation is available to the poor, it is rendered less effective by insufficient resources, overwhelming caseloads, and inadequate oversight." This remains true even in capital cases. In a report ordered by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, a judge in Philadelphia recently concluded that the compensation of court-appointed capital defense attorneys in Philadelphia is grossly inadequate and unacceptably increases the risk of ineffective assistance of counsel.
