ACLU: Michigan’s public defender system among worst, By Doug Guthrie, May 18, 2011, Detroit News: “Michigan’s system of appointing lawyers to represent criminal defendants who can’t afford to hire their own is among the worst in the nation, according to a report issued today by the American Civil Liberties Union. Using numerous prior studies by others that condemned the state’s dependence on a patchwork of dissimilar systems run separately by 83 counties, the report blasts a lack of oversight, funding, training and failure to meet national standards…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty