Let's look at the facts here, as stated in the majority opinion. The client, now represented by Gerry Spence's Wyoming firm, spent 14 years in jail for captial murder on a conviction that was later overturned.

"The Nevada court held that he was not provided effective assistance of counsel because the assistant public defender failed to investigate the case. The state declined to reprosecute." "According to the complaint, Miranda truthfully maintained his innocence, and he provided Rigsby with a list of forty witnesses who could provide information on who actually committed the crime. Rigsby, fresh out of law school and an assistant public defender for a little over a year, had never tried a murder case, much less a capital case. He interviewed only three of the witnesses Miranda had listed and subpoenaed none for trial. Miranda alleges conduct that fell far short of the minimal requirements of effective representation."

Then we get to the crux of the lawsuit. The head public defender in the office instituted two policies.

a policy of administering a lie detector test to all defendants and allocating minimal resources for preparation of defense to those clients who appear guilty because they failed the polygraph. The plaintiff claims that this policy violates the basic dictates of Gideon v. Wainwright...to provide all defendants with effective counsel regardless of guilt or innocence. ... The second policy of the Public Defender was to assign the least-experienced lawyers on the staff to capital cases without training or experience in the special demands of such cases. Plaintiff maintains that such a policy constitutes a lack of training so severe as to establish a “deliberate indifference” to a defendant’s constitutional rights."

The Court addressed the two policies in turn. As to the polygraph policy, the Court said, "The policy, while falling short of complete denial of counsel, is a policy of deliberate indifference to the requirement that every criminal defendant receive adequate representation, regardless of innocence or guilt." And, we would add, countrary to the dissenting judge's opinion, regardless of whether he is telling his lawyer the truth. The Court then ruled that a public defender's allocation of resources cannot be based solely or even principally on the results of a client's polygraph. We agree with the majority.

The Court, in addressing the second policy, that of assigning the least experienced lawyers to represent capital murder defendants, mentioned that the county's response to the claim was this: "as a matter of law, attorneys who have graduated from law school and passed the bar should be considered adequately trained to handle capital murder cases." We could write a book on why that's not true, and we doubt anyone reading this believes that. Death is different, as even the Supreme Court has acknowledged. Would you want a doctor one year out of med school to perform brain surgery on you? The Court wisely rejected the County's argument and ruled "the allegations are sufficient to create a claim of “deliberate indifference to constitutional rights” in the failure to train lawyers to represent clients accused of capital offenses. Again, in our view, this was the correct decision.

If a client is lying to his lawyer, a private investigator hired by the lawyer to investigate the facts and interview witnesses is far more likely to bring out the truth than a polygraph. The client could be lying through his teeth, and he's still entitled to the same resources to prepare a defense as the client who truthfully says he didn't do it and passes a polygraph. To assign a brand-new lawyer to a death case without training or supervision or in anything other than a "second or third" chair capacity is throwing the client to the wolves.

On March 18, 2003, America will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, in which a poor Florida prison inmate caused the single biggest change in the history of the U.S. criminal justice system. The Gideon decision guaranteed assistance of counsel to all persons facing imprisonment.

As one of our heroes, Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights wrote: The rationing of legal services to the poor when life and liberty is at stake is neither equal nor just.