Right to Counsel Key Findings:
-
The right to counsel is guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as by the Texas Constitution.
-
The 77th Texas State Legislature passed the Fair Defense Act of 2001 (S.B. 7) to improve the provision of indigent defense services.
-
In more than half of Texas counties, less than 10% of defendants facing possible imprisonment for misdemeanor offenses receive appointed counsel, compared to a rate of 56% nationally.[i]
-
People who are accused of criminal offenses and deprived of the right to a lawyer are less likely than defendants represented by defense counsel to understand sentencing alternatives; in turn, the former are more likely to receive longer prison sentences or harsher probation terms, ultimately contributing to Texas’s prison over-crowding crisis.
-
Defendants who are wrongfully denied the right to a lawyer face the risk of being convicted of crimes they did not commit, leaving the public at continued risk from the true perpetrators of those offenses.
-
Convictions for jailable misdemeanors that do not actually result in confinement in jail or prison may result in a number of serious consequences, including loss of employment, housing, and the right to operate a motor vehicle, according to federal and state law.
-
Prosecutors have no obligation to explain all of the terms of probation to a defendant who has waived the right to a lawyer, creating a much higher risk of probation revocation for defendants who are untrained in the law and who are forced to face the system alone.
-
Practices that wrongfully deny defendants the right to counsel create the risk that factually warranted convictions may nonetheless be overturned because they are illegally obtained.
[i] U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (Pg. 6).