Everyone should know the story of Clarence Gideon.\u00a0 Charged with Burglary, he asked for but was denied a lawyer:<\/p>\n
The Defendant<\/strong>: Your Honor, I said: I request this court to appoint Counsel to represent me in this trial.<\/p>\n The Court<\/strong>: Mr. Gideon, I am sorry, but I cannot appoint Counsel to represent you in this case. Under the laws of the state of Florida, the only time the Court can appoint Counsel to represent a Defendant is when that person is charged with a capital offense. I am sorry, but I will have to deny your request to appoint Counsel to represent you in this case.<\/p>\n The rest, as they say, is history.\u00a0 With a self-prepared petition on Florida\u2019s prison paperwork, Gideon brought the Supreme Court to rule that \u201cin our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.\u201d<\/p>\n That was 1963.\u00a0 This year, for the first time, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had to confront whether Gideon<\/em> was satisfied as long as there is some<\/em> lawyer; or whether, instead, a county [if not the Commonwealth] must provide real funding and resources to make the right to counsel meaningful.\u00a0 The case arose in Luzerne County as an injunctive action seeking proper resources for its Public Defender Office.\u00a0 On September 28, the Court strenuously endorsed the \u2018real funding\u2019 approach.<\/p>\n The case is Kuren v. Luzerne Cnty.<\/u>, Nos. 57 MAP 2015, 58 MAP 2015, 2016 Pa. LEXIS 2191 (Sep. 28, 2016).\u00a0 The Court\u2019s first conclusion was unequivocal:<\/p>\n Gideon<\/strong>‘s clear command to state courts would be a dead letter if states\u2014or the counties that comprise them\u2014need only go through the motions. The Court’s eloquent descriptions in Johnson and Gideon<\/strong> of the essential nature of the right to a lawyer would ring hollow,\u00a0and would amount to empty rhetoric, if appointment of counsel for indigent defendants is but a mere formality. It is the defense itself, not the lawyers as such, that animates Gideon<\/strong>‘s mandate. If the latter cannot provide the former, the promise of the Sixth Amendment is broken.<\/p>\n From this the Court concluded that the claim was litigable.\u00a0 \u201cThere is a cognizable cause of action whereby a class of indigent defendants may seek relief for a widespread, systematic and constructive denial of counsel when alleged deficiencies in funding and resources provided by the county deny indigent defendants their constitutional right to counsel.\u201d<\/p>\n But what I suggest is the most important part of the decision is the metric it approved for assessing whether the right to counsel was being honored.\u00a0 The Court, without hesitation, adopted as its own plaintiffs\u2019 \u201csix essential components of competent \u2018legal representation\u2019 that offices servicing indigent defendants require in order to comply with the Sixth Amendment[.]\u201d<\/p>\n They are:<\/p>\n Why is this important?\u00a0 This is now the measuring stick for every Public Defender Office in Pennsylvania.\u00a0 But it is equally applicable to each county\u2019s \u2018system\u2019 for appointing conflict counsel \u2013 the lawyers in private practice who are appointed in cases where the Public Defender represents a codefendant or otherwise cannot represent the accused.<\/p>\n Consider the Court\u2019s repetition of one of the flaws in Luzerne County.\u00a0 \u201cTrial attorneys, untrained in appellate practice, were required to appeal their own cases, which often resulted in missed deadlines, waived issues, and unpersuasive arguments.\u201d\u00a0 Is this a message that \u2018one size does not fit all?\u2019\u00a0 Does it invoke the need for resource\/support centers for counsel for indigent defendants?<\/p>\n And in Philadelphia, where there is a crisis in finding counsel for post-conviction representation, the question must be asked whether these standards apply to those lawyers as well.\u00a0 While Gideon<\/em> itself applies only through trial, sentencing, and a direct appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has recognized a right to effective counsel in post-conviction proceedings.\u00a0 To make that right meaningful, proper funding and resources \u2013 the core underpinnings of the six metrics approved in Kunen<\/em> \u2013 will be needed.\u00a0 Counties and Courts \u2013 take notice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everyone should know the story of Clarence Gideon.\u00a0 Charged with Burglary, he asked for but was denied a lawyer: The Defendant: Your Honor, I said: I request this court to appoint Counsel to represent me in this trial. The Court: Mr. Gideon, I am sorry, but I cannot appoint Counsel to represent you in this case. Under the laws of the state of Florida, the only time the Court can appoint Counsel to represent a Defendant is when that person is charged with a capital offense. I am sorry, but I will have to deny your request to appoint Counsel to represent you in this case. The rest, as they say, is history.\u00a0 With a self-prepared petition on Florida\u2019s prison paperwork, Gideon brought the Supreme Court to rule that \u201cin our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.\u201d That was 1963.\u00a0 This year, for the first time, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[145,57,500],"audience":[58,55,56,54],"coauthors":[40],"class_list":["post-1699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-commentary","tag-advocacy","tag-evidence","tag-gideon","audience-alumni","audience-practitioners","audience-prospective-students","audience-students"],"yoast_head":"\r\n\n