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Indigent Defense in Alabama

By Steve Hall

Lagniappe of Mobile reports, "Legal Expert Calls Mobile County?s Indigent Defense System the ?Perfect Storm?."  It's written by Peter Teske.Mobile County?s indigent criminal population is at the mercy of a system one expert in Washington D.C calls the ?perfect storm.? Strengthening that storm, this legal expert says, are violent squalls of excessive judicial power and torrential downpours of constitutional disregard.?Alabama?s right-to-counsel system has the ?perfect storm? of characteristics that virtually guarantee ineffective assistance of counsel to the poor,? said National Legal Aid & Defender Association Research Director David Carroll. ?Because Alabama pays for all indigent defense services (no county money at all) out of a fund that combines some state general fund monies and revenues collected on a $50 civil filing fee while ceding control of services to the local judiciary, judges can give out big payments to favored attorneys without being fiscally responsible for doing so...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on January 27, 2010 (boomark / email).