Habeas Corpus - Public Defenders

I apologize for not covering this more, but there is a couple of battles going on over the public defender system here in New York.  It's an issue that I probably should mention  around here since I believe that most habeas petitioners in New York had public defenders/assigned counsel in the state courts.  In addition, IAC is a ground often asserted in habeas petitions, so who represents criminal defendants in the state courts, obviously, has an impact on habeas.

However, I am not going to give any comment on the two battles, other than to point them out.  Although I don't think either battle directly relates to my job, I'd rather refrain from taking a position here.  And, of course, I wouldn't want anything that's said on here to be looked at as a reflection of my office's position on any of this.  As a reminder, anything said on here is my opinion and my opinion alone.  In any event, I don't know what my office's position is and, even if I did, I most certainly wouldn't say it on here.

On to the battles.  The first battle is a class action lawsuit challenging the public defender system in New York State as a whole.  The NY Times covered the case here and here.  That case is going to be argued before the New York Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

The second battle is just a New York City based one.  It concerns which type of lawyer gets to handle "conflict cases." In New York City, the primary public defender at the trial level is the Legal Aid Society.  In addition to Legal Aid, there are seven other institutional public defender organizations that take cases.  Private attorneys (known as 18B attorneys) handle the remaining indigent criminal cases.  The question is who gets the case when an institutional provider gets assigned to a case but there is a conflict of interest.  I believe that, currently, if there's a conflict, 18B attorneys step in.  There is a new proposal out there that would allow institutional providers to handle more of the conflict cases.  The 18B attorneys are fighting the proposal.  Here's an article that discusses this battle.