HELENA, MT, June 9, 2005 – The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) today celebrated the passage of The Montana Public Defender Act of 2005. This historic legislation creates, for the first time in Montana’s history, a statewide public defender system – and promises to dramatically improve the criminal justice system in Montana, making it safer and more efficient for all residents.

“In 2004, Montana policymakers were informed by NLADA of serious deficiencies in the state’s indigent defense services,” said Jo-Ann Wallace, NLADA’s incoming president and CEO. “We applaud the bi-partisan legislature and the governor for acknowledging the systemic problems and for creating a system that will protect the right to counsel for every resident of Montana. We urge states across the country to look to Montana as a model of what’s possible in criminal justice reform.”

NLADA served as an expert in a class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU in 2002. After extensively studying the Montana public defense system, NLADA concluded that Montana did not meet the majority of nationally recognized standards for the delivery of indigent defense services, including the American Bar Association’s Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System, originally drafted by NLADA.

“In reaching this conclusion, NLADA recognized that Montana, like many sparsely populated and largely rural states, is differently situated from states with large urban centers,” said David J. Carroll, NLADA director of research and evaluations. “Nevertheless, the distribution of the state’s population did not and cannot exempt it from compliance with constitutional requirements to provide adequate legal services. In fact, the centralization provision of funding, oversight, training and supervision contained in The Montana Public Defender Act of 2005 is more, rather than less, crucial to the delivery of adequate defender services in rural states.”

Montana’s legislators looked carefully at the ABA’s Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System, making it the first state in the nation to follow this guide for criminal defense reform. These standards exist to help all states address the concerns most central to safeguarding the Constitutional rights of all Americans. Other states have begun to follow Montana’s lead, and reform measures based on these principles are being considered in Michigan, Louisiana and Virginia.

“This legislation is groundbreaking,” stated Mr. Carroll, who went on to caution that, “we must now look to the legislature and Governor to support the bill by ensuring that adequate funding for reform exists and that the implementation of the legislation is efficient and timely.”

The National Legal Aid & Defender Association encourages all states struggling to reform their public defender systems to refer to the ABA’s Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System and follow the impressive precedent set by Montana.

For more information, please visit http://www.nlada.org.

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The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA), founded in 1911, is the oldest and largest national, nonprofit membership organization devoting all of its resources to advocating equal access to justice for all people. NLADA champions effective legal assistance for people who cannot afford counsel, serves as a collective voice for both civil legal services and public defense services throughout the nation and provides a wide range of services and benefits to its individual and organizational members.