The Indigent Defense Research Association

Notable Recent Publications features the latest empirical research and data related to indigent defense. Should you have suggestions, ideas for work that should be included, or trouble accessing any of the articles featured, please write to albdavies@smu.edu .  Articles Cynthia Alkon, Criminal Court System Failures During COVID-19: An Empirical Study . Ohio Journal on Dispute Resolution. How did the criminal legal system respond to the early months of pandemic in 2020? This article reports the results of a unique national survey of judges, defense lawyers, and prosecutors.... [S]urvey results detail, in ways not previously fully understood, how crucial...in-person communications are and how ill-prepared the criminal courts and legal professionals were to deal with the quick change to online and remote platforms... [T]here were not processes...in place to consult with all the professionals as changes were being made. This may be one reason for the critical system failures re

Notable Recent Publications features the latest empirical research and data related to indigent defense. Should you have suggestions, ideas for work that should be included, or trouble accessing any of the articles featured, please write to albdavies@smu.edu .  IDRA videos The Post-Pandemic Criminal Courts , Prof. Elizabeth Webster. Articles   Suzanne St. George, Colleen Sullivan, Breanne E. Wylie, Kelly McWilliams, Angela D. Evans, Stacia N. Stolzenberg. Did Your Mom Help You Remember?: An Examination of Attorneys’ Subtle Questioning About Suggestive Influence to Children Testifying About Child Sexual Abuse   Vol 37, issue 15-16, Journal of Interpersonal Violence . "[A]ttorneys, and defense attorneys, in particular, may be motivated to ask about suggestive influence and truthfulness in subtle ways, such as with implied meaning (e.g., “Did your mom help you remember?”).... We examined 7,103 lines of questioning asked by prosecutors and defense attorneys to 64 child

Notable Recent Publications features the latest empirical research and data related to indigent defense. Should you have suggestions, ideas for work that should be included, or trouble accessing any of the articles featured, please write to albdavies@smu.edu .  Articles   Matthew Clair and Alix S. Winter, The collateral consequences of criminal legal association during jury selection , Law and Society Review.   "How does a potential juror’s association with the criminal legal system matter during jury selection? ...We draw on interviews with 103 lawyers and judges in a Northeastern state to examine how court officials think about juror bias in relation to criminal legal association beyond felon status. We find that court officials often seek to remove people perceived to be offenders with lower-level forms of system association as well as people perceived to be crime victims. These exclusionary efforts extend to also exclude perceived offenders’ and victims’ social networks. T

Notable Recent Publications features the latest empirical research and data related to indigent defense. Should you have suggestions, ideas for work that should be included, or trouble accessing any of the articles featured, please write to albdavies@smu.edu . Articles Kevin Dahaghi Uneven Access to Justice: Social Context and Eligibility for the Right to Counsel . Social Problems. The right to counsel is a cornerstone of due process. This article explores the legal construction of “indigency” in criminal county courts. I examine Texas’s Fair Defense Act (2001), a policy mandate that required all 254 counties to create formal criteria used for determining eligibility for access to counsel, as an empirical case for understanding local policy choices that shape access to justice. Drawing on novel data from court plans, I find significant variation in the stringency of eligibility criteria used to determine indigency. Results show that socioeconomic conditions, racial

Notable Recent Publications features the latest empirical research and data related to indigent defense. Should you have suggestions, ideas for work that should be included, or trouble accessing any of the articles featured, please write to albdavies@smu.edu . Articles Madhuri Sharma, Lisa Stolzenberg, Stewart J.D'Alessio, Evaluating the cumulative impact of indigent defense attorneys on criminal justice outcomes . Journal of Criminal Justice. This study utilizes meta-analysis to synthesize estimates of the impact of public defenders and assigned counsel on the severity of imposed legal sanction at several decision points... While public defenders and assigned counsel have some notable effects on specific court outcomes such as pretrial detention and sentencing, the meta-analysis results show that they are just as successful overall as private attorneys in representing their clients' interests. The defendant's indigent status most likely explains why the clients

Notable Recent Publications features the latest empirical research and data related to indigent defense. Should you have suggestions, ideas for work that should be included, or trouble accessing any of the articles featured, please write to albdavies@smu.edu . Articles Kimberly M. Davidson , Brian J. Ostrom & Matthew Kleiman, Client Perspectives of Holistic Defense: Strengthening Procedural Justice through Enhanced Client Trust . Justice System Journal. ...We examine public defense from the client perspective through in-depth interviews (n = 36) coded deductively, comparing the experiences of clients of holistic defense (n = 20) with those of traditional public defense (n = 16). We find that distrust and cynicism are pervasive in both client samples, but the holistic defense model provides tangible ways to build trust with clients, bolster perceptions of procedural justice, enhance legal and extra-legal client outcomes, and increase client satisfaction... We demo