WASHINGTON, DC, February 27, 2009 — Knox County, Tennessee residents saw their constitutional rights to fair and adequate legal representation diminished on February 20th, when the General Sessions Court, Misdemeanor Division for Knox County, Tennessee disregarded the uncontested evidence of a dangerously overburdened public defender system and refused to allow District Public Defender Mark Stephens to suspend the appointment of additional clients to his office. Stephens had asked the court for the relief after determining that the office’s high caseloads were making it impossible for his attorneys to provide quality representation to individuals whose lives and liberty depended upon it. In his testimony to the court, Stephens explained that without adequate time to properly research, investigate and prepare for each case, the office’s attorneys are practicing in an unethical manner and clients are suffering because of it. The most immediate impact of the court’s decision will be felt by those without the resources to help themselves. When public defense services are compromised, the courts become one-sided and unfair, the community loses faith in its courts, the accused become faceless numbers, taxpayer money is wasted by inefficiently run courts and jails, and victims and the community as a whole are re-victimized. For when an attorney’s ineffectiveness results in innocent people being wrongly convicted, the true perpetrators remain free to prey on others. “We are very disappointed that the judges of Knox County, while finding that the lawyers of the public defender office handled caseloads that exceed national criminal justice standards, refused to remedy the injustice, thus diminishing the value they place on the dignity of each person that appears before the court and the Constitutional rights they are sworn to uphold,” said Richard C. Goemann, NLADA’s director of Defender Legal Services. NLADA commends the courage shown by Public Defender Mark Stephens in standing up for his clients and the people of Knox County. We hope the day will soon come when the courts of Knox County will also stand up for justice on behalf of all of its residents.

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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 Americans. 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.