New York will beef up indigent defense in five counties in 'groundbreaking' lawsuit settlement
Indigent defense in five New York counties will be beefed up and handled by the state’s Office of Indigent Legal Services in a lawsuit settlement heralded as a possible blueprint for a statewide approach.
The state will help pay for more defense lawyers and other support staffers in the five counties as part of the settlement, report the New York Law Journal and the New York Times. Caseload limits for public defense lawyers will be set, and indigent defendants will get counsel at arraignment. The settlement applies to Suffolk County in Long Island and four upstate counties.
New York state currently has “a hodgepodge system of public defense” funded by New York City and 57 counties outside the city, the New York Law Journal says. The takeover of indigent defense by the Office of Indigent Legal Services will be the first time the state has direct responsibility for indigent defense in any county, the story says. The Office of Indigent Legal Services will also develop statewide standards governing who should get a government-paid defense lawyer.
According to the New York Times, “civil rights advocates characterized the settlement as groundbreaking and predicted that it would serve as a model for many other counties outside the city.”
See also:
ABA Journal: “Fifty years after Gideon, lawyers still struggle to provide counsel to the indigent”
