Delaware Gideon's Call

The Answering Gideon's Call: Improving Indigent Defense Delivery Systems Initiative is in response to the U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision Gideon v. Wainwright of 1963, which guaranteed the right to counsel in criminal cases in every state. While persons accused of a crime have a Constitutional right to an attorney, indigent defense systems throughout the country are frequently underfunded and understaffed. Far too often, the lack of resources poses a serious impediment to providing indigent defendants with even minimally effective legal assistance.

The Answering Gideon's Call: Improving Indigent Defense Delivery Systems Initiative is designed to contribute to the indigent defense knowledge and practice by testing approaches to providing quality indigent defense services using the Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System promulgated by the American Bar Association (ABA) in 2002. The goals are to enhance a state or local jurisdiction's ability to provide quality representation to indigent defendants, promote innovation, and promote strategies that incorporate the ABA Ten Principles.

The Delaware Office of the Public Defender will use the grant funds to research best practices, policies, and procedures and implement those practices in a newly formed Office of Conflicts Counsel. Specifically, the funding will allow Delaware's Office of Conflicts Counsel to enhance its ability to provide quality representation to indigent defendants by developing and implementing an innovative data-driven approach that promotes strategies identified in the ABA's Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System. CA/NCF