Indigent Legal Services Commission

The long-running legal challenge over Maine's failure to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who can't afford them has reached the state Supreme Court. Arguments before the court today focused on whether the lower court has the authority to order defendants released from jail if they are not provided a lawyer.

The Maine Supreme Court has halted hearings in a long-running indigent defense lawsuit while the legal challenge is appealed.

The state and the ACLU of Maine have reached a tentative settlement agreement in a lawsuit that claims the state has failed to provide adequate legal representation to low-income criminal defendants.

The ACLU of Maine filed suit one year ago this week, claiming the state is failing in its constitutional obligation to provide attorneys to low-income criminal defendants. Since then, lawmakers created a small, public defender office to take cases in rural Maine.

The commission asked for $62 million last summer to fully meet the system's needs.

The bill is now headed to Gov. Janet Mills' desk.

One agency that did not receive a boost from the governor's $1.2 billion supplemental budget was Maine's Commission on Indigent Legal Services. The funding snub has rekindled questions for some over the future of Maine's embattled public defense system.

Plea deals handed out and negotiated before defendants meet with the state’s free ‘Lawyer of the Day’ have Maine defense attorneys calling a…

The state of Maine spent more than $21 million last year to provide free lawyers to people who cannot afford legal representation in court. And while…

The state commission that provides private attorneys for accused Mainers who can’t afford them says it will take its time in considering the…