• Eligible for Justice: Guidelines for Appointing Defense Counsel: For more than four decades, the Supreme Court has been clear: the Constitution requires states to provide a lawyer to people facing criminal charges who are unable to afford their own counsel. Unfortunately, neither the Supreme Court, nor any other source, has detailed how communities should determine who can afford counsel and who cannot. As a result, eligibility is determined differently almost wherever one looks: some communi­ties don’t have any official screening processes at all, while others apply widely varying criteria and procedures.

In this report, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law pres­ents information about best practices for determining financial eligibility for free counsel. The report gathers, in one place, existing standards and procedures, relevant judicial prec­edent, and the specific views of many defenders in communities around the country.

• The Costs and Benefits of an Indigent Defendant Verification Study:This report summarizes the methodology and results of economic analyses of the problems associated with court-appointed criminal defense counsel. The principal investigators conducted site visits of court and jail facilities in four north Texas counties, including collection of documents, interviews with county officials, and observation of arraignments and completion of the financial affidavit.

Supplement to the Costs and Benefits of an Indigent Defendant Verification Study