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Gideon Reviewed: The State of the Nation 40 Years Later
In the landmark case Gideon v. Wainwright , the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously concluded that states have a constitutional obligation under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to provide counsel to indigent defendants in felony cases. Over the ensuing 40 years, the right to counsel has been consistently extended to any case that may result in a potential loss of liberty.
Despite this, only 22 states administer and fund all indigent defense services at the state level.
The remaining states rely either in part or entirely on local funding and/or court costs to fulfill their constitutional obligation. Local funding, which is primarily derived from property taxes, tends to constrict in inverse proportion to the demand for indigent defense services (i.e., a weakened local economy causes increases in unemployment, worker flight, demands for other county services, and crime), producing instability in funding and wide fluctuations in the quality of indigent defense, as described below:
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