Where are we in the fight for quality indigent defense in Michigan…?
…On the brink of what could be major steps towards the day when indigent defendants charged with crimes can count on having a public defender that will betrained and accountable!
The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (“NLADA”) released a June 2008 evaluation of Michigan’s indigent defense system, and found that “the state fails to provide competent representation to those who cannot afford counsel in its criminal courts”
On October 13, 2011, at the urging of numerous legal and community leaders, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder issued a historic Executive Order establishing the state’s first Indigent Defense Advisory Commission (“Commission”) to make recommendations to the Governor and the Legislature for “improvements to the system of providing legal representation for indigent criminal defendants.”
After several meetings, the 14-member Commission has issued nine recommendations,and endorses the establishment of a permanent Commission that will promulgate and implement rules requiringstate-wide standards and enforcement, and provide a greater assurance of quality legal representationfor poor defendants.
Now we need the Legislature to introduce and pass a bill that will not only create a permanent Commission, but arm it with the tools necessary to implement all of the recommendations offered by the Advisory Commission. Wayne County, home to the State’s largest city, Detroit, is also Michigan’s most populated county (with 1,820,584 residents); and is most densely populated (with 2,974 residents in each of its 614 square miles). Richly diverse, it boasts a population that is 52.3 percent white, 40.5 percent African American, 5.2 percent Hispanic/Latino, and 2.5 percent Asian.
Wayne County can also be viewed as “ground zero” for many of the problems that face indigent defenders in Michigan. Wayne County residents constitute a plurality of Michigan’s prison population.
According to the Urban Institute’sReport on Prison Reentry in Michigan, “Approximately one-third (34 percent) of prisoners released to parole in 2003 retuned to Wayne County – a county that already faces greater economic and social disadvantage than many other counties throughout the state. For example, the percentage of families living below the federal poverty level in Wayne County is 72 percent higher than the statewide average, and the Part I crime rate is 57 percent higher in Wayne County. The majority (80 percent) of prisoners released to parole in Wayne County returned to Detroit, where the unemployment rate in 2000 was more than double what is was in poverty. Among the prisoners released to parole in Wayne County, 41 percent returned to eight zip codes – all of which are in Detroit. Most of those eight zip codes display high levels of economic and social disadvantage”
So, what’s the problem?
One of the problems in Wayne County is that the community is not aware of – nor has it been engaged in – the struggle for quality indigent defense. Most people do not see it as a pressing – or even personal – problem. Consequently, they have not demanded reform, nor held their elected officials accountable for the mess we’re in!
However, when one thinks about it, almost everyone in Wayne County has been touched – or has a family members or friend who has been touched – by the indigent defense system. Just look at Wayne County’s prisoner reentry return rate! We all have a stake in the outcome of this process.
Al (BJ) Williams
