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Maha Jweied: The Department is interested in indigent defense because of a
commitment by this Attorney General and this administration.
The Access to Justice Initiative was formed two years ago this month, a
reform to address both the access to justice crisis and the civil and criminal
justice systems.
Our mission is to help the justice system efficiently deliver outcomes for
individuals regardless of wealth or status, and a necessary component of our
work is strengthening and improving indigent defense.
How we do that is of course varied, but one important aspect is the research
that's needed to identify solutions to indigent defense, and that's why the
solicitation is so important.
Being able to identify evidence-based solutions to the problems in delivery
of defender services enables us to know exactly how to identify that the
resources, the scarce resources that we have, and how to identify how to
allocate them at all levels of government.
Nadine Frederique: Some of the most significant problems in delivery of
services circle around access, which is why we chose access to defense
services for adults and juveniles as areas of focus in the solicitation.
So we know from surveys of the field that some jurisdictions, the timing of
access is an issue, so whether you are guaranteed services of an attorney at
pre-trial, at bail, preliminary motions, hearings, trial, there's a whole
spectrum of points in the court system where there's differences across
jurisdictions when they can be given access.
And we also know that certain states have different policies to determine what
parts in the court system process you are allowed legally to have an attorney
if you cannot afford one.
And so those are some of the issues we see as very significant.
We also see significant issues in staffing and resources that public
defenders have, and so that's another reason that the second focus of the
solicitation focuses around the team, the services and the resources that the
public defenders are given to do their job effectively: expert witness
access, social services for their clients, resources for their clients to be
able to overcome some of their challenges, looking at a more holistic
approach to defender services.
So those are some of the bigger--and of course there are many other issues
that we could have focused on, and there are many other issues that are very
important, which is why the solicitation also has an open-ended component.
And so if there are other--I know there's a lot going on in the states right
now in terms of reform efforts all across the country, and so states are
definitely and jurisdictions are definitely encouraged to propose research
that is relevant to their situation, evaluating their programs and their
resources.
And we just request that those applications be earmarked as "other" and also
that they be strong, a strong research focus in what you propose to do in
your jurisdiction.
Frederique: I think there's been little research on issues of access to legal
services for the indigent because it's a complicated, multifaceted issue.
Issues of access, it's about policy, it's about resources of public defender
offices.
In terms of research, there's also issues of access to data--collecting data;
Is that data available?
Linking data across courts, public defender offices, and institutions.
So there's many issues involved in studying this empirically.
Some have been able to do it to varying degrees of success, and in some areas
of indigent defense there is empirical research.
There's more empirical research on the effectiveness of private versus public
versus contract attorneys.
However, just issues of access, I think, because they're so multifaceted,
have maybe been left alone a little bit too long.
This is why we want to do the solicitation, so we can focus some attention to
these front-end issues.
Jweied: Well, it's a crisis because of really the realities within the
criminal justice system that far too many people proceed without attorneys or
access to one even though it's a constitutional right, and really how it
impacts all of the criminal justice system with respect to costs within
the--actual monetary costs as well as costs with respect to human lives and
how it really devastates families and individuals when they are caught up in
a system that they don't understand and don't have access to legal
representation or counsel.
Frederique: The National Institute of Justice has several goals with this
solicitation.
Obviously, we've been engaged in indigent defense research since the 1980s,
and we want to continue that research, but we also want to move it forward.
We want to take advances.
We want to go in different places than we've been before and advance the
field forward too so it can become more empirical, more evidence-based, and
more rigorous research directed to this area.
So we want to engage social scientists and different stakeholders in research
efforts and that indigent defense to gather more evidence about what works
and to gather more evidence about some of the barriers to access.
And we also want to confirm or evaluate or assess some of the assumptions in
the field about some of the barriers and put some numbers behind those
assumptions.
Jweied: So, improving indigent defense first and foremost means that we as a
nation can fill our constitutional promise to provide access to legal
representation for those who are accused of a crime who cannot afford to pay.
But there's more.
It creates cost savings for communities.
It creates safer communities, and it also helps us achieve our ideals with
respect to making sure that all individuals have their human rights preserved
and intact.
The right to a fair trial that can impact someone's freedom or even could result in
a sentence of death should not be dependent on whether or not someone has the
money to afford an attorney.
Frederique: So, regarding the type of people who are eligible to apply for the
solicitation, there are no restrictions in terms of size--so local
jurisdictions, county, and state jurisdictions are all eligible to apply.
We at NIJ find value in researchers pairing up with practitioners and
practitioners pairing up with researchers in order to facilitate good,
quality research.
So I strongly encourage, if you're a jurisdiction who is considering
submitting a proposal, pairing up with a local researcher at a university or a
law school who can help you develop and partner with you to carry out an
evaluation of your proposal.
Jweied: The results of this important solicitation on indigent defense can
really help guide the solutions that are to come with respect to indigent
defense.
So we know that through evidence-based research we can identify the solutions
to the many problems that exist in indigent defense.
And why that's important is because of the scarce resources that exist.
So identifying what really does work, where the problems are, allows all
levels of government to better allocate those resources.
It also contributes generally to understanding of indigent defense and to
understand precisely what works and the variety of approaches that are needed
to consider solutions to these problems.
Frederique: Well, NIJ is committed to this line of research, and we hope that
looking at areas of access to justice will help us get a firm footing on some
of the other important empirical research, so we are committed to engaging in
research for indigent defense services in the future, and we're hoping that
this research will provide a framework for us to get some cumulative knowledge
and go next steps in access to justice and other resources for public
defenders.
We hope that there are some policy implications from the research that we
will be able to use and offer to jurisdictions for their resources, and we
hope that we'll be able to engage more with practitioners and policy makers in
this field.