THE ADVOCATE Journal of Criminal Justice Education & Research  Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy Volume 22, Issue 1 January 2000

Clarence Earl Gideon could not afford an attorney, so he represented himself and managed to get himself convicted of a crime he did not commit. Those who follow criminal law know the rest.

Gideon wrote a letter to the Supreme Court from his prison cell, arguing it was not fair that he was denied legal representation simply because he was poor. The court agreed, and in 1963 Justice Hugo L. Black wrote that there could be no fair trial in a serious criminal case without a right to counsel for the defendant.

Anthony Lewis, a New York Times columunist who wrote about Gideon’s case in Gideon’s Trumpet, said last year it was time to amend Black’s precedent-setting opinion to today’s standards: There can be no justice without "competent" counsel "with adequate resources."

That is also the finding of the Blue Ribbon Group, whose appointed members represented the Kentucky justice system and legislature with a goal of providing solutions to improve the state’s public defender system. The group discovered some disturbing, yet not surprising, weaknesses in Kentucky’s system.

Most of them centered on the lack of money spent on indigent defense.

Among 19 states that were studied, including all those contiguous to Kentucky and others with similarities, Kentucky ranked as one of the worst in indigent defense cost per capita, cost per case and in public defender salaries.

The starting pay for Kentucky public defenders is $23,388 per year. The average entry level salary for 23 other jurisdictions is $32,396 and five of Kentucky’s seven neighboring states pay at least $30,000, including Indiana and chronically poor West Virginia.

What Kentucky is very good at is tacking on fees to court proceedings and then collecting that money to aid public defenders. Each person who is assigned a public defender is assessed a $52.50 fee, and the DPA also collects $50 of the $200 service fee charged to those who are convicted of drunken driving. In fiscal year 1998, Kentucky received 15.2 percent of its revenue for indigent defense from those sources, among the highest of any state.

The notion of "making the criminals pay for their defense" has merit, but at some point, reality says there is a limit to what can be collected. Success in creating alternate revenue does not excuse the legislature from taking seriously its duty to provide adequately a fair trial for each person arrested in Kentucky.

Out of 12 other states that supplied their costs for indigent defense in 1998, Kentucky spent less per case than any. Kentucky spent $19 million for 101,210 cases, a per-case cost of $187. Kansas and Wisconsin each spent more than $500 per case. Tennessee spent $235 per case but also had 50 percent more cases.

The inherent problem in boosting the amount spent on indigent defense is that many people do not care whether someone accused of a crime is fairly represented — unless it is someone they know. Getting "tough on crime" is worthwhile, but so is upholding the constitutional right to a fair trial.

If that is not one of our most cherished rights — for everyone — what have we become as a society?
 

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