CARSON CITY - While the nation has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright - the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that guarantees indigent defendants the right to legal counsel - a new study indicates the milestone is not cause for celebration in rural Nevada.
The study, entitled "Reclaiming Justice," commissioned by the Nevada Supreme Court's Indigent Defense Commission, concludes that there are deficiencies in the ability of rural Nevada counties to meet the Sixth Amendment requirements of the Gideon decision.
In rural Nevada, indigent defendants may sit in jail for several weeks or even months waiting to speak to an attorney while witnesses' memories fade and investigative leads go cold, the report noted.
Nevada Supreme Court Justice Michael Cherry is calling for a state-funded public defense commission to oversee and administer all right-to-counsel services outside Clark and Washoe counties. The state's two most populous counties were not the focus of the study because they have public defender offices and sufficient numbers of attorneys for court appointment.
"Nevada's rural counties simply cannot shoulder the state's obligations under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution any longer," Justice Cherry said. "The financial burden will only increase as the U.S. Supreme Court continually clarifies and expands the obligations an attorney owes the indigent accused."
"We need to fix this problem now," said Justice Cherry, who chairs the Supreme Court's Indigent Defense Commission.
The study will be presented by the Commission to the Nevada Supreme Court, which will consider its findings and recommendations in a public hearing. Interested parties will have the opportunity at the hearing to comment on the study and provide other input.
According to the Nevada Association of Counties, rural counties are stretched to the financial breaking point as they work to provide competent legal representation for indigent defendants.
The situation is only going to worsen as a growing number of people qualify for public defense lawyers as a result of the current economic climate.
The limited number of attorneys practicing in rural areas only complicates the indigent defense dilemma. Even when an attorney is appointed in a rural county, a defendant "may be one of several hundred vying for the time and attention of the lawyer," the report said.
In 2008, the Indigent Defense Commission's Rural Subcommittee concluded that "rural counties are in crisis in terms of indigent defense," noting that one county in particular has an annual public defense attorney caseload of "almost 2,000 per contract lawyer."
"Not even the most competent lawyer on earth can effectively open, investigate, and dispose of cases at a rate of nearly five and a half cases per day, every single day of the year, weekends and holidays included," the report stated.
Justice Cherry said "Judicial, Legislative, and Executive action is needed to restore Nevada's historic and deep-rooted commitment to equal justice to the poor."
The report points out that "since 2008, numerous Nevada Supreme Court administrative orders have improved the right to counsel in the state's urban centers. This is most notable in Clark County (Las Vegas), where public defender caseloads are now reasonable ... and attorney contracts do not impose financial incentives for attorneys to do as little work as possible on a case."
"But fixing the 'crisis' in rural Nevada has proven to be more difficult," the report continued. "There are a wide variety of reasons for this, including a lack of attorneys to do the work, the geographic expanse of most rural counties, and limited infrastructure to train and evaluate attorneys."
"Perhaps most importantly, though, most rural Nevada counties have insufficient resources to keep pace with the United States Supreme Court as it continually clarifies and expands the responsibilities that attorneys owe to their clients under the Sixth Amendment," the report concluded.
The Sixth Amendment Center was commissioned to research and write the "Reclaiming Justice" report. The Sixth Amendment Center is a nonprofit research organization dedicated to ensuring fairness to poor people in the justice system, according to David Carroll, executive director of the Boston, Mass., based firm.
"Reclaiming Justice shows that the people of Nevada have always viewed the right to counsel not as a federal mandate to be resisted, but as a bedrock principle upon which the state was founded," Carroll said.
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