Ensuring Equal Justice for All Demands an Increase in Assigned Counsel Rates

NYSBA Criminal Justice Journal | Summer 2000 | Vol. 8 | No. 1 15 ments. Upon a motion by the assigned counsel to be relieved, the request was granted by the court, with the obvious consent of the defendant, and another 18-B attorney assigned to the matter. To the dismay of the court and the defendant, the newly appointed attorney, upon learning at the first appearance that the case was trial ready, advised the judge that he could not possibly try the case within the coming year because of his commitments to even older cases. It is difficult to juxtapose a two-week turnaround in the Circuit Court of Appeals in the Gonzalez case with the extraordinary delay in this New York City trial-ready case.