“Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy.”
— Psalm 82:3
Our forefathers tried to carry out that command by implementing the Sixth Amendment. It requires, among other things, “the assistance of counsel” for people accused of crimes.
A new report, though, says our state is falling short in that constitutional mandate.
“The Right to Counsel in Mississippi” was released Monday by the Sixth Amendment Center in partnership with the Seattle University School of Law. The Mississippi Public Defender Task Force commissioned the study with funding from the U.S. Justice Department. The 132-page report looks in-depth at the public defender system in 10 counties sampled from throughout the state.
It says Mississippi has no way of ensuring local courts are following the Sixth Amendment. The state leaves the decisions and funding for public defenders up to counties. Most every county in this state is stretched tight to provide services for law-abiding citizens, much less those accused of crimes entitled to a taxpayer-paid lawyer.
Sixty-three counties appoint private attorneys “who are paid a fixed fee to represent an unlimited number of indigent felony defendants.” Twelve counties pay an hourly rate, and seven counties have public defender offices.
The report takes issue with judges hand-picking the public defenders “rendering the defense attorneys beholden to the judge for their livelihood.” The report also said there’s no measuring the performance of public defenders and no regular process for removing ineffective attorneys.
It faults the long period between arrest and arraignment where the accused doesn’t have access to an attorney. In a particularly telling section, it notes that a defendant arrested on a felony charge who has not been indicted is entitled to a preliminary hearing, yet only a very small percentage of indigent defendants actually have such a hearing.
Why’s that? According to the report, that hearing is the trigger for when a person requires an attorney present in court. So instead of providing them an attorney, they’re offered a sort of bribe.
“In all 10 of the studied counties, felony defendants are almost always offered and accept a bond reduction in exchange for waiving their right to preliminary hearing,” the report said.
These are legitimate complaints that should concern us all as much as a journalist is concerned about the First Amendment or a hunter about the Second.
To fix this, the report recommends the legislature setting state-level standards for what is expected for public defenders and to monitor to make sure those rules are being followed.
It also recommends less jail time by diverting some out of the criminal justice system and reclassifying some petty offenses as non-jailable. That misses the point of Mississippi having a criminal underclass who will repeatedly commit crimes if not punished.
So the report, although right in many ways, lost me there. Here are two conclusions I take from a more realistic perspective:
1. Counties just don’t have enough money to pay for consistent representation for the huge volume of felony cases they face. The only way to change that will be a major court case that either reverses a serious conviction, thus outraging the public, or holds a county responsible for poor representation from a public defender, thus outraging Boards of Supervisors to petition the legislature to do something.
2. If you or your child ever faces a serious charge, hire a private lawyer. Sell your house, cash in your 401(K), pass the hat at church. Whatever it takes, make sure you have someone financially invested in winning your case.
Charlie Smith is editor and publisher of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him at csmith@columbianprogress.com or (601) 736-2611.
