A new American Bar Association study has found that thousands of suspects, including some who are later given death sentences, risk wrongful conviction because they are pressured to accept guilty pleas or have incompetent attorneys. After surveying 22 states, the ABA committee leading the study stated that legal representation for indigent defendants is in “a state of crisis.”

In its report, the ABA featured a number of wrongful conviction cases, including the recent release of Lousiana death row inmate Ryan Matthews, to underscore the need for Congress and local governments to spend more money and create oversight groups to guard against shoddy legal representation. The study asked judges to be more vigilant in ensuring that defendants have competent counsel, and it noted that no formal training for indigent defense counsel is offered in Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas, the state that carries out the most executions each year. The ABA report criticized “meet ‘em and plead ‘em lawyers” in parts of the South who often negotiate a plea agreement on the first day they meet their client, and it found disparities in compensation between prosecutors and public defenders. In California, for example, defense counsel average $60.90 for every $100 the prosecution receives.

“The fundamental right to a lawyer that Americans assume appl[ies] to everyone accused of criminal conduct effectively does not exist in practice for countless people across the United States. All too often, defendants plead guilty, even if they are innocent, without really understanding their legal rights,” the study states. (Associated Press, February 11, 2005). Read the Executive Summary of the ABA’s Report, “Gideon’s Broken Promises: America’s Continuing Quest for Equal Justice.” Read the Complete Study. See also Innocence, Representation, and Studies.


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