The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) met in New Orleans this weekend. One of the issues under consideration was the lack of adequate counsel provided to indigent defendants in Louisiana and other southern states. Hearings were held on Friday in conjunction with the ABA on the state of Gideon vs. Wainwright, the 40 year old Supreme Court decision guaranteeing the right of counsel to the indigent.

The bar association took testimony about the state of indigent defense in the South. "A Hearing on the Right to Counsel" marked the 40th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that guarantees the right to an attorney.

....Poor criminal defendants in Louisiana and other Southern states are routinely denied their constitutional right to an attorney, leaving them languishing in jail without having been charged and more often than not forced into plea bargains, defense lawyers said Friday at a national conference in New Orleans.

The main culprits are a lack of financing and a judicial system that tolerates delays, the lawyers said. And it's the cases that fall under the public's radar -- the lower-level courts that handle traffic violations and misdemeanors -- where the poor's right to appointed attorneys remains ignored. "We have assembly line justice," said lawyer Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. "And it's a pretty shoddy assembly line in most places."

Here's just one of the incredible horror stories:

[Lawyer Thomas] Lorenzi told the story of a man in Calcasieu who was jailed in December 2001 and left there until this past July, when he was finally assigned an attorney. Originally arrested in connection with a burglary, the man was released a week ago. He was never formally charged with any crime. "Nobody seems to know what happened," Lorenzi said.

You can read more stories in the the Calcasieu Parish study is available online here.