A Superior Court justice has ruled that despite a pending appeal, hearings will proceed for the release of criminal defendants who have been without a state-appointed attorney for more than two weeks.
It's the latest development in a long-running legal dispute over Maine's indigent defense system. The State of Maine had sought to delay hearings, pending its appeal of a ruling issued in March, to the state Supreme Court, but Kennebec County Justice Michaela Murphy ruled last week that she will not wait to schedule individual hearings.
Zach Heiden is chief counsel for the ACLU of Maine, which first filed the lawsuit challenging the state's handling of these cases more than two years ago.
"Since we won this case, there has been some significant progress, and the government has to be commended for that, but there are still too many people locked up in jail or being denied the right to counsel," he said.
Murphy said that as of April 25 there were 49 defendants in custody without counsel.
She wrote that the court has an obligation to start individual hearings for unrepresented defendants.
"Sometimes things do get put on pause when a case is going up on appeal," Heiden said. "But a habeas corpus proceeding is an emergency. It means that somebody is being held, potentially illegally, in denial of their rights. And those sorts of cases need to proceed immediately."
Murphy said she expects to have two initial sessions of hearings in June and July.
The state has appealed Murphy's March ruling in favor of the ACLU of Maine to the state Supreme Court, which has not scheduled oral arguments for the case.
