Sixth Amendment

For the poor, who are disproportionately people of color, the criminal justice system in the United States is essentially a plea-and-probation system.

The Supreme Court and non-unanimous juries.

Proposed as a compromise to ensure the ratification of the new US Constitution, the Bill of Rights has become a critical protector of civil liberties.

America’s founding document is now an all-but-meaningless scrap of paper. Happy Fourth!

Without a more fundamental transformation of criminal law, public defenders often provide only a limited form of equality and fairness before the law.

The right to public defense wasn’t granted by elites. It was won by socialist-led mass movements.