A large sum of my data collection thus far has involved researching the rise of the privatization of prisons. In an effort to examine the intersection between neoliberalism and the broader United States criminal justice system, I shifted my focus away from the privatization of prisons for the time being. I am now refreshing my memory and collecting more information on the history of the Sixth Amendment. Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) extended defendants’ right to counsel beyond federal prosecutions and expanded the right to encompass all criminal prosecutions. The Supreme Court’s decision in Strickland v. Washington (1984) held that the right to counsel implicitly mandates effective representation. In Strickland, the Court established a two-prong test that would be used to determine the effectiveness of appointed counsel: first, the error prong and second, the prejudice prong. A multitude of civil cases have been brought before district courts challenging the lack of adequate representation from public defenders across different localities. Wilbur v. City of Mount Vernon (2013) and Alford v. Johnson County Commissioners (2018) are among these civil cases that alleged an inadequate source of representation from public defenders. There are a multitude of on-going cases that question the quality of representation from overworked, poorly funded public defenders.
I have previously encountered the information I gathered, and thus I was not surprised by the data. However, it is interesting to look at this information under the lens of neoliberalism. The data reinforces my understandings of the inequality of representation between wealthy and indigent defendants. Much of the inadequacy of counsel is overlooked because the two-pronged Strickland test poses a high standard for proving poor representation. Some of the greatest challenges I encountered while collecting data included making sense of the legal jargon within case briefs. I was able to rely upon Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute website for clarifications on the legal jargons. For my next steps, I would like to receive a better understanding of the neoliberal qualities that are reinforced in legal counsel.
Cases: Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), Strickland v. Washington (1984), Wilbur v. City of Mount Vernon (2013), Alford v. Johnson County Commissioners (2018)
Cornell Website: “Right to Counsel,” Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/right_to_counsel.
Anarelis,
I like the detail you provided with regards the sixth amendment. However, it is not entirely clear to me how you plan to bring this into your work on private prisons. Maybe this just means that it needs a point of clarification. The sixth amendment examines the right to a speedy and public trial. While we know that there is widescale inequality through this process that is viewed to be egalitarian in nature, this is not fully contend with the rising private prisons. I’m not saying there is no association between the two, only that you need to make more explicit why we should see the sixth amendment being connected to the rise of private prisons.