[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 43 (Tuesday, March 18, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3874-S3875]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          GIDEON v. WAINWRIGHT

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today marks the 40th anniversary of the 
Supreme Court's Gideon v. Wainwright decision, which held that all 
people facing serious criminal charges are entitled to a lawyer, 
whether they can afford one or not. The anniversary of this watershed 
moment in American law should be a cause for celebration. Sadly it is 
not.
  Forty years after the Supreme Court ruled that a fair trial requires 
the right to counsel, people in courtrooms across the country are 
represented by attorneys who do not have the time, training, or tools 
to do their jobs. The unfortunate fact is that in some parts of the 
country, it is better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent, 
because the rich will get their competent counsel, but those who are 
not rich often find their lives placed in the hands of underpaid court-
appointed lawyers who are inexperienced, inept, uninterested, or worse.
  Just 2 years ago, the Department of Justice declared that public 
defense in the United States is in a ``chronic state of crisis.'' 
Around the country there are alarming statistics about the many flaws 
that continue to plague the

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criminal justice system. For example, according to the National Legal 
Aid and Defender Association: In Wisconsin, more than 11,000 people go 
unrepresented annually because anyone with an annual income of more 
than $3,000 is deemed able to afford a lawyer. In Bucks County, PA, the 
public defender office handled 4,173 cases in 1980. In 2000, with the 
same number of attorneys, the office handled an estimated 8,000 cases. 
In Lake Charles, LA, the public defender office has only two 
investigators for the 2,550 new felony cases and 4,000 new misdemeanor 
cases assigned to the office each year. Indigent clients in Lake 
Charles typically meet their public defender for the first time an 
average of 281 days--more than 9 months--after their arrest. In 
Virginia, a juvenile charged with a felony who cannot afford a lawyer 
gets an attorney who is paid for the equivalent of only 90 minutes of 
work because of the $112 per-case fee cap.
  The crisis in public defense is not limited to misdemeanor and minor 
felony cases. I have spoken many times over the past 3 years about the 
shameful but all too common spectacle of underpaid, underfunded, and 
incompetent counsel in capital cases.
  When people in this country are put on trial for their lives, they 
deserve to be defended by lawyers who meet reasonable standards of 
competence, and who have sufficient resources to investigate the facts 
and prepare thoroughly for trial. As citizens, we expect that of our 
prosecutors. We ought to expect the same thing of our defense 
attorneys. Yet in these most important cases, where life or death hangs 
in the balance, defendants have been represented by sleeping lawyers, 
drunk lawyers, lawyers under the influence of drugs, lawyers who do not 
meet or even speak with their client until the eve of trial, and 
lawyers who refer to their own client with racial slurs.
  Part of the problem, I think, lies with some State court judges who 
do not appear to expect much of anything from criminal defense 
attorneys, even when they are representing people who are on trial for 
their lives. Good judges, like good prosecutors, want competent 
lawyering for both sides. But some judges run for reelection touting 
the number and speed of death sentences they have handed down. For 
them, the adversarial system is a hindrance.
  The problem of low standards is not confined to elected state judges. 
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court held that it was OK for the defendant 
in a capital murder trial to be represented by the same lawyer who 
represented the murder victim. Two years ago, a Federal appeals court 
struggled with the question whether a defense lawyer who slept through 
most of his client's capital murder trial provided effective assistance 
of counsel. Fortunately, a majority of the court eventually came to the 
sensible conclusion that ``unconscious counsel equates to no counsel at 
all.''
  If Gideon is to have any meaning in the 21st century, the courts must 
start demanding more of defense lawyers than that they simply show up 
for the trial and remain awake. At the same time, the people's 
representatives in the State legislatures and here in Congress must 
also do their part.
  For 3 years, I have been working with colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle to pass the Innocence Protection Act, a basic, commonsense 
package of criminal justice reforms. This bill would help make good on 
Gideon's promise of equal justice in the small but consequential set of 
cases in which the accused faces a possible death sentence. More 
specifically, the bill would help States create the systems and pay the 
price for qualified attorneys in capital cases.
  Last year, the Innocence Protection Act won the support of a 
bipartisan majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and more than 
half the entire House of Representatives. This year, my cosponsors and 
I are committed to getting the bill signed into law.
  The anniversary of Gideon is a time to reflect on how far we have 
come, and how far we have to go, in ensuring equal justice for all 
Americans. The United States must do better to protect the rights of 
its citizens and provide qualified defense counsel to the poor and 
disadvantaged. It should not take another 40 years to deliver on this 
basic constitutional guarantee.

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