The governor recently signed into law a measure, introduced at the request of the Unified Court System, allowing New York to establish centralized, off-hours arraignments of criminal defendants in counties outside of New York City.1 The law will go into effect later next month. This legislation is the culmination of years of effort to address logistical challenges encountered in delivering to indigent defendants meaningful and effective assistance of counsel, particularly at their first appearance before a judge.
The origins of this statute relate back to the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Gideon v. Wainwright. In Gideon, the court ruled that an indigent criminal defendant in a state court has a constitutional right to appointed counsel.2 To comply with Gideon, New York enacted County Law Article 18-B, and placed the responsibility of delivering mandated legal services to indigent defendants on county governments. Over 40 years later, the court system’s Commission on the Future of Indigent Defense Services issued a report concluding that indigent defense providers in our state (paid for by limited county funds) toil under excessive caseloads, lack access to adequate training, and lack support to conduct thorough investigations.3 The commission determined that the uneven distribution of resources among public defenders from county to county yielded inconsistent access to justice for indigent criminal defendants and, at times, resulted in the deprivation of their constitutional and statutory rights.
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