Clemency Amicus

Amicus Brief in support of Plaintiffs 

Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal

Filed Jan. 8, 2020  

TOPICS: Right to Counsel; public defense funding

In what might be the first of its kind, our brief–joined by an impressive array of ideologically diverse co-amici–argues that the 6th Amendment prohibits states from systemically under-funding public defender offices and explains how the Framers intended the Constitution to establish a vibrant adversarial criminal legal system, not a “sacrifice of unarmed prisoners to gladiators.”

We  thank the American Conservative Union Foundation Nolan Center for  Justice, Cato Institute, Freedomworks Foundation, James Madison Institute, Innocence Project, Innocence Project New Orleans, National Legal Aid & Defender Association, Public Defender Services for the District of Columbia, and R Street Institute for joining our brief in support of the right to counsel. 

Due Process Institute also thanks Chloe Chetta of Barrasso Usdin Kupperman Freeman for her pro bono work on this case.