Indigent Defense

The landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision Gideon v. Wainwright, which established the right to counsel in criminal cases, caused the most significant transformation in American criminal justice history: recognition that every defendant, whether wealthy or poor, is guaranteed the right to a lawyer. But more than forty years after the Gideon decision, the American justice system is still failing to protect the rights and liberty of the nation's poorest defendants.