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Indigent Defense in Virginia
Efforts to reform Virginia's indigent defense system have reached a critical stage. In the past few years pressure has built on public officials to take action to ensure more effective representation of the criminally accused. We have reached a point where proponents of reform have their best opportunity for seeing that the promises of Gideon v. Wainwright and the Sixth Amendment are kept in Virginia. The success or failure of Virginia's efforts to improve indigent defense will affect thousands of poor Virginians facing possible imprisonment who are deprived of effective assistance of counsel. Virginia currently ranks the lowest among all U.S. states in the fees it allows for court-appointed criminal defense lawyers. Unlike most states, Virginia also prohibits judges from waiving the limits on defense fees even in the most extreme circumstances. The system fails to provide defense lawyers with enough resources for investigators or experts to challenge the prosecution's case or to help determine appropriate sentencing options. Furthermore, Virginia's salary structure for public defenders cannot compete in the public service marketplace, much less with private law firm compensation. In addition, Virginia provides the lowest compensation for court-appointed attorneys in the country. A court appointed attorney in Circuit Court is paid a maximum of $158 for a misdemeanor punishable by confinement, $1,235 for a felony punishable by more than 20 years confinement, and $445 for all other felonies. In General District Court and juvenile cases, attorneys receive up to a maximum fee of $120 per charge. The system's effects on juveniles, who are not only represented by attorneys paid at the bottom of the scale but also require more comprehensive services, is particularly severe. The maximum caps on fees cannot be waived under any circumstances. These low fees do not cover an attorney's overhead expenses after a few hours of work, which means that the system creates an incentive for lawyers to encourage early guilty pleas. Certainly, there is no incentive for a lawyer to do thorough investigation, hire experts, or conduct legal research, and no one is accountable when lawyers fail to complete these basic tasks. As a result, the representation for poor defendants in the Commonwealth of Virginia falls well short of the Sixth Amendment guarantee of effective assistance of counsel. Ultimately, the consequences are devastating: innocent people end up behind bars, leaving the truly guilty out on the streets and undermining the public's confidence in the integrity of the system. The Fair Trial Project is most concerned with introducing statewide oversight and accountability to Virginia's system; implementing qualification and performance standards for appointed defense counsel, including caseload limits; increasing the availability of resources for appointed defense counsel; and improving compensation for private assigned counsel and public defenders. Above all, the Fair Trial Project seeks to ensure that all Virginians receive competent and committed representation, regardless of their ability to afford counsel. Through intensive community outreach and development and implementation of a strategic public education campaign, the Fair Trial Project will be able to achieve significant reform in a state that has thus far been intractable and create a strong, broad-based, and unified voice for indigent defense reform in Virginia. 
Click here to view a PDF version of Indigent Defense in Virginia - A System in Crisis from our Fair Trial Project Press Kit. You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this file. If you do not have this software installed on your computer, click here to download the free Acrobat Reader. |
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