I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The Michigan Campaign for Justice will be hosting a celebration of the 46th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark Gideon v. Wainwright decision on Wednesday, March 18 at the Capitol building in Lansing. They’ll be using the opportunity to encourage lawmakers to pass important legislation to shore up Michigan’s public defender system.
Gideon v. Wainwright was a unanimous ruling from the Court in 1963 that firmly established the right to counsel in this country, the idea that you cannot put someone on trial without giving them a lawyer if they can’t afford one. Clarence Gideon was wrongly accused of larceny and breaking and entering for allegedly stealing money from a pool hall, but he couldn’t afford an attorney.
The court decided that since it wasn’t a capital case, he didn’t have the right to an attorney so he was forced to defend himself and the jury found him guilty. He filed an appeal from prison, literally writing it out in pencil on prison stationary, and the Supreme Court decided to hear the appeal. And in an interesting historical coincidence, the Supreme Court decided to appoint an attorney for him and they appointed Abe Fortas, a very prominent attorney in Washington D.C. who two years later was appointed to serve on the Supreme Court himself. Fortas ended up resigning in a scandal five years later.
After the ruling, Gideon’s case was reheard with a court-appointed attorney and he was acquitted of the crime. This ruling led to the establishment of public defender agencies throughout the United States. The Michigan Campaign for Justice is using this anniversary to draw attention to a recent study that concluded that Michigan’s public defender system is disastrously underfunded and fails to meet minimal due process standards.
They’ll be handing out birthday cake to legislators at the Capitol along with copies of that report, the U.S. Constitution and copies of the Gideon ruling to underscore the importance of adequate public defender systems in making our criminal justice system truly just.
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