Indigent Defense Structure
The way the state pays for public defense services.
Funding of indigent defense services
Defendant is held in jail and brought from jail/prison for their court appearances.
In-custody
A crime punishable by death or more than a year of prison.
Felony
Poverty; a person who cannot afford an attorney.
Indigent
The total number of assigned cases that an attorney is handling at any time.
Caseload
Equality in funding, resources, and staffing, usually between the prosecuting agency and the indigent defense agency.
Parity
Court appearance in front of judicial officer to decide amount of money defendant needs to pay for their bail.
Bail hearing
Criminal behavior committed by a minor.
Juvenile delinquency
A defendant who does not have representation in court proceedings.
Unrepresented
The availability of senior supervisor attorneys with limited or no caseloads to manage, train, and oversee indigent criminal defense providers.
Supervision
The type of attorneys a public defense system uses to provide services; can be public defenders or private attorneys.
Service delivery model
Defendant is released from custody pre-trial without needing to paying bail.
Personal recognizance
A type of legal case in which the government charges a person with violating a criminal law.
Criminal case
A flat fee charged to a defendant to receive a court-appointed lawyer.
Assessment fee
A form of compensation in which an attorney is paid a given amount per case worked, or per unit of time spent accepting ad hoc assignments.
Flat fee
Money spent by the government, often listed in a government body's yearly budget and fiscal reports.
Expenditure
Judicial officer's standard to determine if there's sufficient evidence to proceed with the criminal case against the defendant; if not, the charges should be dismissed.
Probable cause
A criminal case in which the defendant's mental illness comes to bear on their legal responsibility and/or competency to stand trial.
Mental health case
A person who cannot afford to pay for a private attorney in full, but who can afford to pay some amount of money for an attorney.
Partially indigent
Rules that outline the duties of defense attorneys to ensure competent representation.
Performance guidelines
Funding that does not come from general tax dollars but is instead generated locally through fees and distributed only within the local jurisdiction where it was collected.
Alternative funding
Prosecutor initiates criminal proceeding by bringing a formal charging document before a judicial officer, who decides if there's sufficient evidence to proceed against the accused.
Information
A civil or criminal charge that someone has disrespected a judge or disobeyed a court order.
Contempt of court
Something that would cause significant difficulty for a person. For example, loss of food stamps.
Undue hardship
When public defense systems are assigned more cases than they can ethically and competently handle, leading to constructive denial of counsel.
Overflow of cases