Types of Indigent Defense Programs

Indigent defense service programs are established to provide legal representation to poor individual who face criminal charges. The programs were created to ensure that the right of poor citizen to receive a fair trial is not violated. This paper examines the different types of indigent defense programs.

State Level

Public Defender Program

Public defender programs entail non-profit organizations that provide representation to indigent defendants (Smith & Defrances, 2010). State public defender programs operate autonomously within the state. The program may consist of individuals appointed, by the governor, to offer representation in all counties within the state. State wide public defendant programs are most utilized programs in terms of provide defense services. However, these programs have not been effective in provide representation. This is because these organizations are not able to attract experienced legal professional as the financial packages offered are less lucrative as compared to private practice (Streib, 2008). Public defense programs are also limited by the problem of resource constraint.

Assigned Counsel

Assigned counsel program entails the appointment of private attorney by the court in order to represent a criminal defendant who appears before the court without representation (Smith & Defrances, 2010). Assigned counsel may be appointed by an individual judge on a case –by-case basis or may follow a coordinate system.

Contract Attorney

Contract attorney is an indigent defense program where the state government assigns a private law firm a contract to represent criminal defendants who cannot afford to hire their own representation (Smith & Defrances, 2010). The state governments compensate the private laws firms for providing the representation services. Contract attorney program is different from public defendant program in that the former involves the use of services from profit oriented organization while the later involve the establishment on a non-profit organization. Contact attorney programs are not commonly used because of the expenses involved in hiring legal contract.

Federal Level

Panel Attorney

Panel attorney programs involve hiring private lawyers to represent indigent defendants where public defendant office cannot to offer representation services (Streib, 2008). Panel attorneys are appointed to represent indigent criminal defendant in several circumstances. One of these circumstances is when judges establish that there is a divergence of interest between the defendant and public defendant office. The second scenario that may require the appointment of panel attorney is when two defendants are jointly accused of committing a crime (Streib, 2008). In such a case, the public defender’s office may find itself in a dilemma when the defendants begin to pin the blame on each other. The third scenario that may necessitate the appointment of panel attorney is when the plaintiff is a former client of the public defendant. This implies that the public defender has the responsibility of representing the defendants and also has the mandate of protecting the confidentiality of information provided by the plaintiff in the previous trial. Federal panel attorneys operate in the federal justice systems.

Community Defender Organization

Community defenders are non-profit organizations that are established to provide representation service to members of particular communities (Streib, 2008). These communities include; minority races and children. Federal community defendant programs operate within the federal justice system.

Public Defender Organizations

Federal public defendant programs are also non-profit organizations that are established to provide representation to defendants facing criminal charges at the federal justice system (Smith & Defrances, 2010). Federal pubic defendant programs are similar to statewide public defendant program. The only difference is that the federal programs operate in the federal justice system while statewide programs operate in the justice system of specific states.

References

Smith S. & Defrances C. (2010). Indigent Defense. October 26, 2012. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/id.pdf

Streib V. (2008). State of Criminal Justice. USA. American bar Association

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