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Indigent Defense Invigorated: A Uniform Standard For Adjudicating Pre-Conviction Sixth Amendment Claims, Emily Chiang

Emily Chiang

Despite the Sixth Amendment guarantee of the right to counsel, commentators have been documenting the shortcomings of indigent defense systems across the nation for decades: state and county underfunding leads to public defenders without essential resources, which in turn results in harm to indigent criminal defendants. Although a host of litigation brought by would-be reformers has sought improvements in county and state public defense systems, many of the claims have suffered from a lack of a clear governing standard. Some courts have relied on the “cause and prejudice” requirements of Strickland v. Washington, which governs post-conviction ineffective assistance of counsel …