CFP: Expanding the Civil Right to Counsel: 50 Years After Gideon

The University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law announces a call for submissions for its 2013 Law Review symposium on “Expanding the Civil Right to Counsel: 50 Years After Gideon.”  Articles presented during the symposium will be published in the Law Review’s annual symposium issue.  Abstracts are due by November 15^th (details here).

Comments

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

While this is an intriguing and important discussion, one can't help but point out that the constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel to indigent defendants remains unmet, in the words of Stephen Bright, "No constitutional right is celebrated so much in the abstract and observed so little in reality as the right to counsel." As Monroe Freedman, among others, has noted again and again, paltry compensation has failed to attract competent lawyers and court-appointed lawyers are frequently incompetent, more often than not valued by judges for their ability to

"move the courts's calendars quickly by entering hasty guilty pleas in virtually all cases. In those few cases the accused insists on his right to trial by jury, the trials typically move rapidly because the court-appointed lawyers generally file no motions, conduct no investigations, and do little to impede the speedy disposal of the case from charge, to guilty verdict, to imprisonment." (the inimitable Monroe Freedman)

I have several posts at Religious Left Law (cross-posted at Ratio Juris) that touch on this and related topics:

http://www.religiousleftlaw.com/2012/08/the-war-on-the-indigent-with-the-sword-shield-of-neoliberal-commodification.html

http://www.religiousleftlaw.com/2012/05/when-innocent-clients-plead-guilty.html

http://www.religiousleftlaw.com/2012/05/wrongful-convictions.html

http://www.religiousleftlaw.com/2011/08/american-violet-a-criminal-justice-story.html

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

This is a promising development that should be noted as well: http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/supreme-court-extends-right-to-effective-counsel-to-plea-bargains