In the United States, many people believe that our legal system is one of the best in the world. That the institution of the courts have more or less reached perfection and little change is needed.

However, that is truly not the case as many aspects of our legal system needs some change.

One part of the American judicial system that is the direst need of reform is the institution of public defenders. Yes, a right laid out in the sixth amendment is an aspect of our legal system that needs serious reform. A major pillar of the American judicial system is the right to be represented by an attorney. In the landmark 1936 case Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court ruled that part of that inherent right was to have an attorney provided for you if you are too poor to afford one.

Unfortunately, this is a right that is being severely diminished across the United States as it is becoming more and more difficult for those who are indigent to be represented fairly.

While affluent defendants can afford excellent legal counsel for their defense, those who are poor are completely dependent upon public defenders or court-appointed attorneys. The workload for public defenders brought about by gross under-funding is so astronomical that providing an adequate defense for someone charged with a crime is, for all intents and purposes, completely impossible. This is extremely critical considering that nearly all felony cases are in need of public defending.

The American Bar Association recommends that public defenders take on no more than 150 felony cases per year and no more than 400 misdemeanors. In reality that could not be further from the truth of the situation. Around the nation, about 73% of public defenders face felony caseloads that are in excess of 500 and misdemeanors that rank in the thousands.

With this ungodly caseload thrust upon public defenders, they cannot spend the time needed to create sufficient arguments on behalf of their clients.

Public defenders in Washington State alone were working with over 1,000 cases a year and spending less than an hour total for each case, some public defenders work on cases for mere minutes at a time. That is because the smaller misdemeanors are relegated to behind major crimes involving cases of murder.

This is why nearly 95% of all cases end up in plea bargains for defendants resulting in what many public defenders refer to this as “meet ‘em and plead ‘em” which can result to people spending more time in jail than is necessary.

States such as Missouri, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania have public defender offices that actually turn new clients away due to their immense caseloads leaving the accused to defend themselves. If there are no public defenders available then the court appoints an independent attorney or will contract one from a law firm to represent a defendant.

Unfortunately, this is problematic as well because the defendant is at risk of being represented by a lawyer who is inexperienced with handling criminal cases thus creating more inadequate defenses. These attorneys often are paid a significantly reduced rate which is problematic for the contracted attorney method of finding defenders because several excellent lawyers do not see this as a good use of their valuable time.

For those attorneys who do choose to go about this to make their living take on as many cases as they possibly can. In New York, one attorney in 2000 was representing 1,600 defendants for only $125,000. Those are the lucky ones, so to speak, as some attorneys are paid nothing because their services are seen as a professional obligation.

While the system of public defenders is clearly flawed around this nation, no state is a worse offender of this than Louisiana. The Pelican State’s public defenders are under the most workload of any in the United States legal system.

The disproportionate allocation of state legal funds directly contributes to the lack of public defenders within Louisiana. The state spends about $3.5 billion for arresting, investigating, prosecuting, and incarcerating its citizens while only 2% of that goes to help make sure that poor defendants are getting a constitutionally worthy defense.

According to the New York Times “nowhere is the system as perverse as in Louisiana, where most of the funding [to public defendant offices and similar programs] comes from court costs imposed on those who are convicted or plead guilty, most often in the form of a $45 fee assessed on traffic tickets” (NY Times, 2016).

When a majority of the funding comes from losing a case this sets up a severe conflict of interest. Forcing to people to pay for an inherent right even when they cannot is beyond wrong. If this is not a complete bastardization of the process guaranteed to the citizens of this nation then what is?

States need to allocate more money for public defenders so that they are able to hire more so that no attorney takes on more cases than the American Bar Association recommends. If states find that they need to contract or appoint attorneys to help with cases then the Federal law should be enacted to make sure that these appointed or contracted attorneys are paid at least an average of the total cost for all defense cases in a state.

If states do not comply then their funding should be taken away. Our nation can and should reform this aspect of the legal system.