On the recordJuly 7, 2016
I rise to introduce the Clarence Gideon Full Access to Justice Act, Gideon Act, and the Equal Justice Under Law Act of 2016, two bills aimed at addressing the access to justice crisis. Today, America's broken justice system is riddled with deficiencies in our indigent defense system and gaps in legal services to the poor. To repair those shortcomings, these bills would improve the justice delivery system that serves people who are unable to afford counsel. Gaps in legal services to the poor exist at all levels of our justice system. To fill in those gaps in the highest court of our land and better balance the scales of justice between the government and the defendants, the Gideon Act would establish an independent federal public defender office charged with representing poor defendants before the United States Supreme Court. To address the indigent defense crisis in the states, the Equal Justice Under Law Act would create a private right of action that allows a class of indigent defendants to sue in federal court when systemic violations of their Sixth Amendment rights to counsel occur. In 1963, the Nation's highest court ruled that Americans have a Sixth Amendment right to an attorney in a criminal case, even if they cannot afford one. In Gideon v.…
