Hurrell-Harring v. State Of New York

930 N.E.2d 217 (2010)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

According to the complaint, 10 of the 20 Ps were altogether without representation at the arraignments held in their underlying criminal proceedings. Eight of these unrepresented Ps were jailed after bail had been set in amounts they could not afford. It is alleged that the experience of these Ps is illustrative of what is a fairly common practice in the aforementioned counties of arraigning defendants without counsel and leaving them, particularly when accused of relatively low-level offenses, unrepresented in subsequent proceedings where pleas are taken, and other critically important legal transactions take place. One P remained unrepresented for some five months, and it is alleged that the absence of clear and uniform guidelines reasonably related to need has commonly resulted in denials of representation to indigent defendants based on the subjective judgments of individual jurists. Ps also alleged that although lawyers were eventually nominally appointed for Ps, they were unavailable to their clients - that they conferred with them little, if at all, were often completely unresponsive to their urgent inquiries and requests from jail, sometimes for months on end, waived important rights without consulting them, and ultimately appeared to do little more on their behalf than act as conduits for plea offers, some of which purportedly were highly unfavorable. It is repeatedly alleged that counsel missed court appearances and that when they did appear they were not prepared to proceed, often because they were entirely new to the case, the matters having previously been handled by other similarly unprepared counsel. There are also allegations that the counsel appointed for at least one of P was seriously conflicted and thus unqualified to undertake the representation.