In 2017, the Mississippi Supreme Court mandated judges across the state submit plans that show how they would meet their obligation to provide poor criminal defendants with counsel.
In the six years since that rule went into effect, just the 22nd circuit court, which covers Claiborne, Copiah and Jefferson county, has done so, according to an investigation by The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal and ProPublica.
André de Gruy, who runs Mississippi’s Office of State Public Defender, says the rule hasn't been followed because local governments, not the state, are the one's required to fund their public defense system.
“People at lower levels who have to do the work say ‘this is an unfunded mandate,’” de Gruy said. “... Enforcing the rules is important, but realistically, if we don't help fund it they’re not going to be able to do it.”
The result is that defendants can sit in jail for months or years without a lawyer.
De Gruy wants the legislature to give him the power to establish indigent defense standards that would be subject to Supreme Court approval. Once uniform standards are in place, he also wants lawmakers to give him the funding needed to implement a cost-sharing program with the courts that adhere to those standards. Ideally, he’d like to see a 50-50 split between the state and local governments for funding public defense. That way, he says, judges are incentivized rather than punished.
"As opposed to a stick to go beat the judges who don't file their plans or don't follow their plans, we'd have a carrot to lure them into doing it,” de Gruy said… “Politically, I think it's a much better approach.”
The Mississippi House of Representatives passed a bill earlier this year that would have given de Gruy those powers, but it was never taken up in the Senate.
The Mississippi Supreme Court made another rule change this year, requiring that poor defendants must always have a lawyer before an indictment. Often, defendants will lose their legal representation during the time period between their first court appearance and indictment. This gap is referred to as the “dead zone,” and defendants can be stuck there for years.
Cliff Johnson, director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi, praised the 22nd circuit court’s indigent defense plan for honoring this rule change, but said many other reforms are still needed.
Mississippi is also in the minority of states without a limit on how long someone accused of a felony can stay in jail before their case is presented to a grand jury. In the federal court system, the time limit is 30 days. In neighboring Louisiana, it’s 60 days. Johnson says a similar time limit is needed in Mississippi for real, structural change to be possible in the state’s criminal justice system.
“District attorneys pay very little, if any, price — political, legal or otherwise — for delaying indictment as long as they choose to delay it,” Johnson said.
Johnson also thinks Mississippi needs a statewide public defender system. Mississippi is one of five states in America without one. The state legislature established one in 1998, but it was shuttered just a few years later. Johnson says returning to a statewide system would help fix the gaps that exist within a patchwork system and ensure the independence of public defenders.
“There's a lot of work to be done if we're really committed to a fair fight in Mississippi, and I think that's all anybody's asking for,” Johnson said.
