Your Constitutional Right to an Attorney

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees defendants the
right to professional legal counsel regardless of ability to pay for it.
Shockingly, there have been systemic Sixth Amendment violations in municipal
courts throughout the United States for some time. In some cases, criminal
defendants are not informed of their right to an attorney free of charge.
In other cases, defendants are wrongfully informed that they either have
to pay for an attorney or represent themselves.

The Problem with Courts of Limited Jurisdiction

Courts that handle misdemeanors function differently than courts that handle
felony offenses. Usually, these misdemeanor courts are referred to as
“courts of limited jurisdiction.” Nationally, there are approximately
16,000 of these courts, and data as of 2009 suggests that these types
of courts handle 70 million cases annually.

Courts that handle felony cases have strict reporting requirements, and
generally fall under more scrutiny than courts of limited jurisdiction.
Data on misdemeanor courts, on the other hand, can be difficult to come
by. This can make it difficult to track and correct Sixth Amendment violations,
which disproportionally affect poor defendants who cannot pay for legal
representation.

Another problem with courts of limited jurisdiction is that, in many states,
judges are not required to have a law degree or to have passed the bar
exam. In Ohio, Municipal court judges must be attorneys who have practiced
law for at least six years. Ohio also has
Mayor’s Courts, which the actual mayor of a municipal corporation can preside over. Mayors
in Ohio are not required to be lawyers, but they can only preside over
cases involving local ordinance violations and state traffic law violations,
such as DUIs.

For a free legal consultation, call 614-884-1100

Pleading Guilty As a Quick Fix

Many poor defendants end up just pleading guilty in order to get out of
jail. Even if a criminal defendant hasn’t been convicted, if they
cannot afford bail, they will have to remain in prison until they either
plead guilty or their trial has concluded. If more defendants were aware
of their Sixth Amendment right to attorney representation, maybe we wouldn’t
have such a high incarceration rate. Reforming courts of limited jurisdiction
is just one link in a larger chain of criminal justice reform.