© ABC/Everett Collection/Rex FeaturesJames Spader and William Shatner in the TV courtroom drama Boston Legal.
With an
historic vote in the state senate for repeal of that state's death penalty statute, Maryland is on track to become the
18th US state to abolish capital punishment. As much as such repeals are worth celebrating, though, they reform just one aspect of a criminal justice system in which poor defendants are provided shoddy, substandard legal representation, if any at all, and innocent people are convicted and imprisoned and, on occasion, may even have been
executed.
Coincidentally, 18 March marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark US supreme court decision in
Gideon v Wainwright, which ruled that states under the
14th amendment must provide counsel to criminal defendants who cannot afford a lawyer. The right to counsel already existed in federal criminal prosecutions under the sixth amendment, but the supreme court forcefully reiterated that.
Sadly, five decades after
Gideon, most courts ignore the constitutional right to counsel by inadequately funding equal representation (
pdf) for the indigent. In many cases, this right exists only on paper, as there is no public will or interest on the part of government to provide competent lawyers to poor people. Many courts
administer cases quickly and with all the thoughtfulness and deliberation of a fast-food restaurant. What we have then is "McJustice", as one Minnesota judge described it.
Even a well-educated layperson charged with a crime knows little or nothing about the law, and "requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him", the supreme court concluded in
Gideon. After all, what if the defendant is not properly charged, or the evidence is insufficient for a conviction? The average person lacks the proper knowledge and training to defend himself or herself. The court realized that there can be no equality before the law if the poor have no lawyers; what results is that justice is meted out on the basis of one's personal wealth.
