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Sixth Amendment

Selected Works

2010

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Law

Lessons From Hurricane Katrina: Prison Emergency Preparedness As A Constitutional Imperative, Ira P. Robbins Oct 2010

Lessons From Hurricane Katrina: Prison Emergency Preparedness As A Constitutional Imperative, Ira P. Robbins

Ira P. Robbins

Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters ever to strike the United States, in terms of casualties, suffering, and financial cost. Often overlooked among Katrina's victims are the 8,000 inmates who were incarcerated at Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) when Katrina struck. Despite a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, these men and women, some of whom had been held on charges as insignificant as public intoxication, remained in the jail as the hurricane hit, and endured days of rising, toxic waters, a lack of food and drinking water, and a complete breakdown of order within OPP. When the inmates …

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The Requirement Of An Investigator In Public And Private Practice, Robert M. Sanger Dec 2009

The Requirement Of An Investigator In Public And Private Practice, Robert M. Sanger

Robert M. Sanger

Trial lawyers do everything we can to avoid IAC and support the requirements of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution which provides that the accused has a right to counsel -- counsel that is not only present but also effective. Under Ake v. Oklahoma , the United States Supreme Court stated that the right includes the right to have experts and investigators. Since Ake, there has been much litigation, particularly in capital cases, regarding the right to have the use of such experts to do an effective job.  

The California courts have made it clear that the …

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Justice Deserts: Spatial Inequality And Local Funding Of Indigent Defense, Lisa R. Pruitt Dec 2009

Justice Deserts: Spatial Inequality And Local Funding Of Indigent Defense, Lisa R. Pruitt

Lisa R Pruitt

This Article, written for a symposium on “Funding Justice,” maps legal conceptions of (in)equality onto the socio-geographic conception of spatial inequality in relation to indigent defense services in Arizona. In particular, we examine county-to-county variations in funding and structures for providing this constitutionally mandated service. We conclude that the State of Arizona’s current system for delivering indigent defense services puts it at serious risk of violating the U.S. Constitution’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel and/or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We outline county-level, legislative and judicial solutions to the problems we identify.
Like more than a third …

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Forfeiture Of The Right To Counsel: A Doctrine Unhinged From The Constitution, Stephen A. Gerst Dec 2009

Forfeiture Of The Right To Counsel: A Doctrine Unhinged From The Constitution, Stephen A. Gerst

Stephen A Gerst

The Sixth Amendment right to an attorney is so fundamental that the United States Supreme Court has carefully developed requirements to ensure that an indigent defendant does not go to trial in any criminal case where there is a possibility of a deprivation of freedom without an attorney unless there is an affirmative waiver of the right to counsel on the record. However, the Supreme Court has not addressed what the record must show for finding that a defendant has lost his right to counsel as a result of the defendant's own misconduct toward the court or the defendant's attorney. …

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