NSF Award
1545620
While there is broad agreement that indigent defense counsel is vital to the proper functioning of the criminal justice system, there is relatively little understanding of the effect resources have on the process of providing defense and on criminal justice system outcomes. This project will take advantage of a financial crisis in Louisiana to better understand the production function of indigent defense systems. <br/><br/>From January 2015 through June 2016 the public defender systems in 25 of Louisiana's 42 judicial districts are expected to fall into insolvency on a rolling basis, and will balance their budgets by restricting services delivered to indigent defendants in juvenile and criminal cases. There will be substantial variation across districts in the extent, timing, and specific indigent defense service restrictions imposed. This project will quantitatively assess the impact of these restrictions on both defense effort and case outcomes in three of the larger districts. Interviews from key judicial stakeholders will be done to provide a deeper understanding of the quantitative results, as well as to assess the impacts of restrictions in districts too small to analyze quantitatively.
