The U.S. Supreme Court’s March 18, 1963, ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright requiring state-funded legal representation to criminal defendants who cannot afford it has amounted to a massive unfunded mandate, one that states have struggled with and sometimes resisted ever since. Still, there are signs of incremental improvement, with key court decisions in Missouri and new ideas for ways to mend the system with minimal costs.
A Promise Unfulfilled
There is near-universal agreement among lawyers who represent the poor that Gideon‘s promise of effective legal counsel for everyone charged with a crime has gone unfulfilled. "The system is broken. It can’t be relied upon to protect innocent people from conviction," said Steven Benjamin, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
