Honors College Theses

Publication Date

5-9-2024

Major

Criminal Justice and Criminology (B.S.)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (restricted to Georgia Southern)

Faculty Mentor

Kristina Thompson

Abstract

Under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, citizens of the United States have the right to counsel, if accused of a crime. In the instance that a defendant cannot afford counsel, the court will appoint counsel for the defendant. This process is known as indigent defense and was implemented into the Court system through the Supreme Court ruling in Gideon vs Wainwright in 1963. Since this landmark ruling, states have struggled with implementing an effective and efficient indigent defense system. Implementing indigent defense systems has created budget allocation issues, resource issues, quality defense issues, and an overworked system. These issues have also caused public defenders to have to work many more hours, reject possible clients, and at times violate the model rules just to keep up with demand. This thesis seeks to assess multiple relationships between public defender systems and prosecutor systems within the respective counties they served in 2007. I compile the Census of Public Defender Offices; County-Based and Local Offices, 2007, and The National Prosecutors Survey [Census], 2007, as the primary data source for this study.

Thesis Summary

Under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, citizens of the United States have the right to counsel, if accused of a crime. In the instance that a defendant cannot afford counsel, the court will appoint counsel for the defendant. This process is known as indigent defense and was implemented into the Court system through the Supreme Court ruling in Gideon vs Wainwright in 1963. Through this landmark ruling, many states have struggled with implementing an effective and efficient indigent defense system. Through this struggle, many defendants risk being denied their constitutional rights. In addition, many public defenders are left overworked, reject possible clients, and not be able to provide zealous advocacy. This thesis seeks to assess multiple relationships between public defender systems and prosecutor systems within the respective counties they served in 2007. Specifically, the relationships between public defender and prosecutor spending, public defender spending and conviction rates, and public defender caseloads and prosecutor conviction rates. Through these analyses, it was found that there are no significant relationships between public defender variables and prosecutor variables. However, it was found that the South is most affected by the lack of regulation of indigent defense systems.

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