Winston Churchill once said that the true measure of a civilized society is how it treats people accused of crimes. America boasts a judicial system renowned for its integrity, an infrastructure built on transparency and impartiality, assumed innocence, public participation and due process. Yet these values do not cloud our system’s bias toward the economically disadvantaged. When it comes to the American legal paradigm, like many aspects of our free-market society — health care, retirement, education — wealth determines who is fortunate enough to reap the benefits of opportunity and access.
With the highest incarceration rate in the world, U.S. prisons have become a congress of the nation’s lowest income bracket. For every high-profile celebrity case, there are hundreds of monotonous hearings and trials; for every Michael Jackson and Robert Blake, there are thousands of nameless and insignificant accused whose charges lack the allure of child molestation or double homicide. Statistics show poor defendants are found guilty at a much higher rate than individuals who hire private attorneys. Those struggling to gain legal representation are those who most commonly and most desperately need it — a paradox that has shaped the noble impetus of America’s public-defense system.
Public-defender programs idealistically preach justice for all by providing indigent attorney services on the cheap, originated after the 1963 Supreme Court case Gideon v. Wainwright established the constitutional right to counsel. Gideon broadened judicial interpretation of the Sixth Amendment and established a poor defendant’s right to legal representation granted by the state. It seems natural that if individuals are accused of wrongdoing, yet cannot afford a lawyer, they should not be forced to defend themselves in a system which swears a solemn oath to grant its accused supreme rights of due process. Such beliefs are not exclusively American ideals. Even China, a nation notoriously known for gross human-rights violations, has adopted a legal-assistance fund to provide legal representation for its poorest citizens.
Yet the precedent set in Gideon is rapidly eroding. According to a 2000 Department of Justice report, public-defense systems around the United States are in a “chronic state of crisis.” In no state is this more evident than Wisconsin, whose pathetic criteria for determining public-defender eligibility deny justice to the poor. These qualification standards have remained unchanged for 18 years, failing to compensate for inflation and drastic rises in essential living costs.
A single person making $3,000 a year is too wealthy to qualify for a publicly appointed attorney in Wisconsin. One would have to make more than three times that just to meet the federal poverty line. Virtually all other states — including Iowa and Minnesota — qualify anyone at or slightly above the federal poverty level. These standards are quick to split hairs between the poor and the extremely poor, the homeless and the near homeless, the less fortunate and the least fortunate. A minimum-wage income may be inadequate to afford basic costs of living, but Wisconsin statutes claim it is sufficient to afford high-priced private lawyers.
State Rep. Terri McCormick, R-Appleton, has drafted several bills attempting to raise public-defender guidelines to 115 percent of the federal poverty line. But the political support for such an initiative — possibly due to the chaotic mess that is the state budget — is so lacking that Rep. McCormick has yet to introduce her legislation. She estimates an additional 11,000 indigent clients would qualify if the guidelines were brought up to par. That is 11,000 individuals who, under the current system, are being unlawfully denied their legal rights.
There are numerous cases of the defense system’s lack of legal counsel placing individuals brought before the law at a severe disadvantage. Ignorant of the process and their legal rights, most can do nothing but plead guilty, regardless of the severity of the jail sentence. We all have to pay for these judicial inefficiencies. Not only is incarceration expensive (each inmate annually costs taxpayers $26,000), but when individuals leave jail, they often collect welfare checks — further costs incurred by taxpayers. As charges pile up and employment histories become quickly soiled, inmates’ abilities to become productive members of society and support themselves diminish. Politicians frantically searching for ways to save taxpayer dollars need look no further than a more efficient, fully funded public-defense infrastructure.
This is not about compassion for the poor. It’s about the integrity of the criminal justice system. American rights of representation are not meant to be exclusive. Justice is no more discriminatory based on income and social class than it is on race, age or gender. Justice will prove selective as long as wealth, power and status subject some individuals to lesser penalties and more gracious legal rights than others. Until legislators decide to invest in public defense, “and justice for all” is just another broken promise.
Adam Lichtenheld ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in political science and African studies. He spent the summer interning for the state public defender in Madison.
