E-mail Interview
Nancy Daniels, Chief Public Defender of the 2nd Circuit of Florida
"Indigent defendants would not have assistance of counsel in criminal cases if Gideon v. Wainwright had not become the law of the land in 1963. Previously, indigent citizens charged with a crime only had the right to state-provided counsel in death penalty cases. They had to represent themselves in every other type of criminal case.
"People who are not trained in law, evidence, and criminal court procedure cannot effectively represent themselves in the vast majority of criminal cases. They do not have the ability to conduct legal research, cross-examine witnesses, make proper legal motions, or do many other things that lawyers are trained to do. They are no match for a state prosecutor who is trained in these skills.
"Our office, and every other Public Defender office, represents citizens charged with every kind of crime—from bad checks to first-degree murder. We also represent juveniles charged with delinquency, citizens committed for mental illness, and sex offenders being committed to civil treatment institutions. In addition, we handle appeals from all of these types of cases.
"The main challenge we face is that we have too many cases. We have never been given enough funding to hire enough lawyers and support staff for the high volume of cases that we handle. The solution we have argued for over the years is that each state should have caseload standards for each attorney, and funding adequate to properly limit our caseloads.
"The state does spend more money for prosecutors. That is not in itself a problem because they prosecute all of the criminal cases, including those handled by private attorneys and conflict attorneys. However, Public Defenders handle approximately 70-80% of the total criminal cases, so we should get that percentage of the prosecutors' funding. Unfortunately, it is less than half of the prosecutors' funding in many areas. We believe that our percentage of funding is not proportional to the percentage of the total criminal caseload that we handle."
- 1. "Homepage," 2nd Circuit Public Defender, accessed March 18, 2014.
- 2. Nancy Daniels, e-mail interview by the author, Tallahassee, FL, January 28, 2013.