A superior court ruled in our favor, ordering Maine to uphold people’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel and establish a plan to end the ongoing crisis.
In April 2019, the Sixth Amendment Center issued a devastating report on public defense in Maine. The Constitution requires states to provide attorneys to people who have been charged with a crime and cannot afford their own. If you’ve ever seen a movie or TV show involving the police, you probably know that already. The Sixth Amendment Center’s report said Maine was not meeting its obligations under the Constitution and that things would only get worse if the state didn’t make serious changes.
At the time, Maine was the only state in the country without a public defender system. Every other state relied on public defender offices, along with private attorneys, to meet the requirements of the Sixth Amendment; Maine alone relied solely on private attorneys.
The Supreme Court recognized more than sixty years ago in Gideon that “any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.” It is our job as advocates to make sure that longstanding commitments to justice are never dismissed or forgotten.
At the ACLU of Maine, we recognized that this was one of the most important constitutional issues facing the people of our state because it created a two-tiered system of justice: one for the rich and one for the poor. As of early January, there were 991 pending criminal cases with no attorney, and 51 cases had been without counsel for over a year.
For three years, we tried to convince the state to fix things. That advocacy didn’t lead to change, so we took the state to court. On March 1, 2022, we filed suit to force the state to live up to its obligations under the Constitution.
Today, just past the lawsuit’s three-year anniversary, the Kennebec County Superior Court ordered the state to fix its right to counsel system. It has taken thousands of hours of legal work from the entire team at the ACLU of Maine, as well as brilliant and dedicated pro bono counsel from Preti Flaherty and Goodwin Procter. Throughout the process, we were inspired by the commitment of our clients. Despite the difficulties in their lives, they were committed to making sure that what happened to them did not happen to anyone else.
The court today ordered the state to develop a plan for ensuring that people accused of crimes have lawyers, starting from when charges are formalized and continuing until the case is resolved. If the state can’t develop and implement a plan, the court is going to order people released from jail and order that charges be dismissed. This is a very serious remedy designed to address an extremely serious problem. No person should be incarcerated or dragged through months of criminal legal proceedings or have charges hanging over their head without the right to counsel.
This is not a new or radical idea. 21 years ago, Massachusetts’ highest court ordered similar action to address the immediate crisis and uphold people’s Sixth Amendment rights. Similarly, a federal court in Oregon ordered that people be released from incarceration after 7 days without counsel.
As the court noted today, “The Plaintiffs in this case have not been convicted of the crimes for which they are charged. Each of them is still presumed to be innocent under the Maine and United States Constitutions. And yet many of them remain in custody, without counsel.” It is a situation that should be intolerable to everyone in Maine. We fervently hope that today’s decision brings us closer to a solution.
