Public defender lawsuit can go forward after all

In the latest twist in the truly bizarre history of an important lawsuit, the Michigan Supreme Court has now reversed its reversal of a previous ruling allowing a legal challenge to the state’s woefully inadequate indigent defense system to move forward.

The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU of Michigan on behalf of the indigent criminal defendants in Berrien, Muskegon and Genesee counties, alleging that the state’s public defender system is so inadequate that it violates the Sixth Amendment guarantee of the right to counsel.

In April of this year, the state’s high court unanimously rejected the state of Michigan’s motion to dismiss the case. Three months later, the court inexplicably reversed that unanimous ruling and dismissed the case. This week it reversed itself again, vacating their July order and reinstating the April order, thus sending the case back to the lower court for a full trial.

A 2009 report by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association in cooperation with the State Bar of Michigan issued a damning indictment of Michigan’s indigent defense system. That report notes that Michigan ranks 44th out of 50 states in spending for public defenders and contrasts that with the fact that the state is among the nation’s leaders in spending on its correctional system.

The report also notes that Michigan has no state agency to oversee the program, putting all the onus on counties to provide for legal defense of the indigent without providing funding, oversight or any coherent standards that must be met.

The study looked at 10 counties in the state and graded them on their ability to meet the standards in an American Bar Association document called Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System. Those standards have been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as defining the constitutional obligation the government has to ensure that every citizen has a right to competent counsel when put on trial. After examining the systems in those 10 counties, the report concludes that “the state of Michigan is failing its citizens by forcing counties to fund the public defender system and neglecting to oversee public defense work in those counties.”

Because there are no statewide standards or oversight, each county has its own distinct system and some of the practices found at the county level are in clear violation of those 10 principles. For example, Jackson County’s public defenders are picked by the judges in each case, which the report argues that undermines the independence of the public defenders from the courts. And because of financial strains in communities around the state, most Michigan counties award contracts for public defense on a low-bid, flat-fee basis, which the report says “guarantee lawyers will not have the resources necessary to prepare a full and fair defense.”

The report notes that in Detroit, only five part-time public defenders handle between 2,400 and 2,800 cases a year, spending an average of 32 minutes on each case. The national standard for public defenders is 400 cases per year. And some courts, according to the report, do not provide public defenders at all for misdemeanor cases, and others are so overwhelmed with cases that they will “offer to let people get out of jail for time-served if they agree not to ask for an attorney.”

Michael Steinberg, legal director for the ACLU of Michigan, welcomed the opportunity to prove in court that Michigan’s indigent defense system is so poor that it violates the Sixth Amendment.

“The unanimous Supreme Court was correct in April and is correct again today,” Steinberg said. “It is widely accepted that Michigan’s criminal justice system is broken for poor people accused of crimes. When the indigent defense system is broken, everyone suffers. Innocent men and women end up in prison while the perpetrators are left on the streets to commit more crimes.”