This article was produced by The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, formerly a member of ProPublica's Local Reporting Network, in partnership with ProPublica and The Marshall Project.

At the first court hearing after someone is arrested for a felony, a judge is supposed to decide whether the defendant can be released from jail and should appoint a lawyer if they can’t afford one.

In many Mississippi courts, that lawyer stays on the case for a short time to handle initial proceedings, including a possible motion for bond reduction, and then exits. Only after the defendant is indicted, which often takes months, is another lawyer appointed. In the meantime, no one is assigned to the case, even if the defendant is in jail.

…

The Supreme Court’s rule, approved in April, was supposed to eliminate this problem. It says a lawyer can’t leave a case unless another one has taken over. All courts in the state must follow it.

Individual judges could face sanctions for not complying with the rule if someone files a complaint against them, [Supreme Court Justice Jim] Kitchens told legislators. Beyond that, however, Kitchens said it’s outside the purview of the Supreme Court to monitor local courts. “It’s not for us to go out and investigate whether that rule is being complied with,” he said.

So, just to recap, criminal defendants must have lawyers under the sixth amendment, Mississippi is failing to provide criminal defendants with lawyers, and one of their Supreme Court Justices really said, “We can’t do anything unless those people without lawyers file a lawsuit,” presumably before saying, “Now I’m off to go tell starving people I will give them a BLT, but first they need to give me the bacon lettuce tomatoe and bread to make it with.”

  • PugJesus
    11•1 year ago

    Courts across Mississippi have ignored a broader rule regarding public defense, the Daily Journal, The Marshall Project and ProPublica have found. That rule, part of a 2017 push to standardize how courts across the state operate, requires judges to send to the Supreme Court their policy on how they fulfill their constitutional obligation to provide lawyers for poor criminal defendants. Just one circuit court district, covering three rural counties in southwest Mississippi, has complied.

    Rule of law, right there /s