A judge has thrown out a wide-ranging suit claiming that Onondaga County’s Assigned Counsel Plan violates the constitutional rights of both attorneys assigned by the plan and their criminal-defendant clients. Northern District Judge David Hurd (See Profile), ruling from Utica in Zeigler v. State of New York, 5:11-cv-037, held that the attorney class does not have standing to assert constitutional claims and that the defendantsthe state, the Office of Court Administration and Fifth Judicial District Administrative Judge James Tormeyall have sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment.
Hurd also found that the attorneys’ claims are barred by res judicata. The Court of Appeals recently ruled in another challenge to the assigned counsel system, Roulan v. County of Onondaga, 2013 WL 1798582, that the county’s plan is legal. Hurd also held that plaintiffs failed to show that a particular client was without counsel when he was arraigned or that the defendants were responsible for what their client said was his unreasonably long detention.
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