Exploring the Sixth Amendment & America’s Unmet Promise of the Right to Counsel
Donald Cravins, Jr., Esq.
1st Under Secretary of Commerce for Minority Business Development
Yesterday, the National Urban League Washington Bureau hosted a Panel Discussion on Capitol Hill in honor of the anniversary of the 54th anniversary of the landmark Gideon v. Wainwright Supreme Court Case. The panel entitled, “Fulfilling Gideon’s Legacy: Exploring the Sixth Amendment & America’s Unmet Promise of the Right to Counsel,” was an opportunity for experts in the legal and civil rights realm to discuss the crisis that low-income Americans face when they enter the criminal justice system.
The Right to Counsel under the sixth amendment is a constitutional right and yet across the country in big cities and small towns, rural areas and booming metropolises alike, low income Americans are provided with little or no defense assistance and sometimes long stays in correctional facilities without a trial. This is an unconscionable violation of basic constitutional rights and it cannot stand.
Our panelists, Michele Jawando, Vice President of Legal Progress at the Center for American Progress, Nicole Austin-Hillery, Director and Counsel of the Brennan Center for Justice, Norman Reimer, Executive Director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Kim Ball, Research Professor and Director of the Justice Programs Office at the American University School of Public Affairs, and Rudy Acree, Deputy Director of the Public Defender’s Service of D.C., presented thought-provoking and profound information on the scope of the crisis we’re witnessing in our courtrooms every day, as well as steps that we all can take to put an end to this appalling injustice.
View the live stream of the event here.
Head of Development Operations
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