May 11, 2010

Court of Appeals Permits Indigent Defense Class Action to Proceed

The New York Court of Appeals yesterday reversed the dismissal of the class action complaint brought on behalf of indigent criminal defendants who allege that the state's failure to fund and support the public defender system has amounted to a continuous and systematic violation of the 6th Amendment right to counsel. The lead plaintiff in the class action, Hurrell-Harring v. State, filed by the NYCLU, was Paul, Weiss client Kimberly Hurrell-Harring, who we successfully represented in her effort to have her underlying conviction vacated. The Court of Appeals, in a majority opinion written by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, held that where, as in this case, certain counties are alleged to have systematically provided virtually no representation at critical stages, such as arraignment or pretrial, the complaint alleges a failure to meet the fundamental right to counsel under Gideon. The Court went on to hold that simply because the remedy required may involve additional funding and reordering of legislative priorities, this would not relieve the Court of "its essential obligation to provide a remedy for violation of a fundamental constitution right." The Paul, Weiss team consisted of litigation partners Andrew Ehrlich and Roberta Kaplan, and associates Satyam Bee and Michael Berger.