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.
ArticlesPamela Metzger, Criminal (Dis)Appearance, George Washington Law Review.
"Across the United States, thousands of newly-arrested people disappear. They languish behind bars for days, weeks – or even months – without ever seeing a judge or an attorney. Yet, the Supreme Court requires more constitutional process for the seizure “of a refrigerator, . . . temporary suspension of a public school student, or . . . suspension of a driver’s license,” than it does for a person who has just been arrested and detained. A new arrestee has no clearly-established constitutional right to a prompt initial appearance procedure. As a result, there is no constitutional doctrine that guarantees her the right to appear promptly before a …

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.
ArticlesMatthew Clair, "Being a Disadvantaged Criminal Defendant: Mistrust and Resistance in Attorney-Client Interactions" Social Forces.
"Researchers have documented the power of legal officials to administer sanctions, from arrest to court surveillance and incarceration. How do those subject to punishment interact with officials and attempt to subvert their power? Drawing on interviews and ethnographic observations among 63 criminal defendants and 42 legal officials in the Boston-area court system, this article considers how socioeconomically and racially disadvantaged defendants interact with their defense attorneys, and with what consequences. Given racialized and classed constraints, many disadvant…

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.
BooksSara Mayeux, Free Justice: A History of the Public Defender in Twentieth Century America. University of North Carolina Press.
[From the website:] "[T]he modern American public defender has a surprisingly contentious history--one that offers insights not only about the "carceral state," but also about the contours and compromises of twentieth-century liberalism... First gaining appeal amidst the Progressive Era fervor for court reform, the public defender idea was swiftly quashed by elite corporate lawyers who believed the legal profession should remain independent from the state... Gideon v. Wainwright enshrined the right to counsel into law and the legal profession mobilized to expand the ranks of public …

IDRA is delighted to announce the publication of its third collection of original empirical research into indigent defense systems. Titled New Developments in Public Defense Research, the volume appears in the June, 2020, issue of Criminal Justice Policy Review. It is co-edited by Dr. Andrew Davies (Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center, Southern Methodist University) and Professor Janet Moore (University of Cincinnati College of Law). In 2015, Davies and Moore founded the Indigent Defense Research Association to promote research into the improvement of these systems.

“Scientific study of indigent defense has the potential to improve and advance these services which are so critical to our criminal legal system,” said Davies. “As far as we know, this is the first volume of a peer-reviewed academic journal that has ever been dedicated exclusively to indigent defense.”

Added Moore, “Empirical research on public defense has an especially important role to play in a time of renewed public…

IDRA hosts montly meetings to discuss issues of importance to the community. In Summer, 2020, these meetings will take the form of three presentations by researchers in our field about their latest work. To join any of these discussions, please reach out to albdavies@smu.edu and we will let you know how!

July 10, 2PM ET: Neel Sukhatme & Jay Jenkins. Pay to Play? Campaign Finance and the Incentive Gap in the Sixth Amendment's Right to Counsel.
Prof. Sukhatme and Mr. Jenkins’ will discuss their research recently highlighted by Adam Liptak in the New York Times (Campaign Funds for Judges Warp Criminal Justice, Study Finds). Their recent Duke Law Journal article, "Pay to Play? Campaign Finance and the Incentive Gap in the Sixth Amendment's Right to Counsel" examines the relationship between attorney contributions to judicial campaigns and indigent defense appointments and income of those attorneys. It has a number of challenging findings and suggests “campaign financ…

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.
BooksMatthew Clair Privilege and Punishment: How Race and Class Matter in Criminal Court. Princeton University Press. For release: November 17, 2020. 
[From the website:] "Privilege and Punishment examines how racial and class inequalities are embedded in the attorney-client relationship, providing a devastating portrait of inequality and injustice within and beyond the criminal courts.... Clair shows how attempts to exercise legal rights often backfire on the poor and on working-class people of color, and how effective legal representation alone is no guarantee of justice. Superbly written and powerfully argued, Privilege and Punishment draws needed attention to the injustices that are perpetuated by the attorn…