You Have the Right to Chronically-Underfunded and Overworked Counsel: The need for improved support of public defense in Cook County and beyond.
BACKGROUND The concept of a public defender is relatively modern in the American legal system. For most of U.S. history, being poor meant defense by an attorney was unavailable to you. That all changed, however, in the seminal case, Gideon v. Wainwright, when the Supreme Court found it to be the...
