Michigan Finally Eyeing Changes To Lawyers For Poor

Lawyers on all sides agree the system enshrined nearly 50 years ago that gives all defendants the right to a lawyer is not working. The Justice Department calls it a crisis — such a big problem that it's been doling out grants to improve how its adversaries perform in criminal cases.

Consider Michigan: Five times since the 1980s, independent groups have called on Michigan to change the way it pays lawyers for the poor. Each time, state officials have done nothing. And a 2008 study by a legal nonprofit association said the state's indigent defense system had reached a "constitutional crisis."

But a lawsuit and a growing number of exonerations may be starting to change that.

35 Years For Someone Else's Crime

On a sticky afternoon along Detroit's riverfront plaza, children jump through chutes of water in a fountain. Nearby, Edward Carter sits on a park bench and talks about his life behind bars.

"I was 19 years old when I went in, and I got out on my 55th birthday," Carter says.

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/14/154849477/michigan-finally-eyeing-changes-to-lawyers-for-poor