Mississippi Set to Fund Day 1 Public Defender Program

Public defenders are crucial to ensuring a fair justice system for all, regardless of financial status, by providing legal representation to those who cannot afford it. They uphold the constitutional right to counsel as afforded by the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution and ensure equal treatment under the law. Their work is essential in preventing wrongful convictions and minimizing future barriers to employment and other opportunities for defendants. 

Public defense systems also save money. Without a public defense system, a person’s lack of money may make it hard for them to find effective counsel and cause them to be unprepared for court. Their lack of effective representation can lead to additional costs for the State through trial delays and increased appeals. Trial delays as a result of ineffective representation often mean defendants spend more time in pre-trial detention, increasing the costs on counties which maintain the local jails. 

Public defense systems also help to minimize people’s future barriers to employment. Criminal convictions often lead people to face collateral consequences—penalties and problems accessing housing, education, or employment opportunities. These consequences can follow people long after their formal punishment is over and have a significant impact on their ability to make a living.

In July 2023, the Mississippi Supreme Court imposed new public defense requirements. In all 82 counties, people could no longer sit in jail without a lawyer even if they hadn’t been indicted, the court said. Instead, counties had to provide free legal representation to poor defendants shortly after an arrest and throughout the time spent waiting for an indictment from a grand jury. In one north Mississippi court, judges appointed lawyers for only 20% of felony defendants who appeared before them in 2022 and forced one defendant in 2023 to represent herself during a key hearing despite her requests for a court-appointed lawyer.

After initially dragging their feet on implementing the 2023 Mississippi Supreme Court's order, the Mississippi State Legislature approved $700,000 to fund a pilot program run by the Office of State Public Defender to set up the one-year test run to help poor defendants in one of the state’s most rural areas get public defenders. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves (R) has until June 19 to sign the funding bill, allow it to become law without signing it, or veto it.

To read more about this pilot program, you can read "From Budget Chaos to Public Defenders: Mississippi Poised to Fund ‘Day 1’ Experiment" at the Marshall Project website. The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.