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States and localities historically called upon attorneys to represent indigent defendants pro
bono and enacted a patchwork of laws to help ensure that counsel was available to them.
While some legal-aid organizations were present in large cities, in most venues the
provision of free and low-cost legal assistance was inadequate. In 1963, however, the
Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that the Sixth and Fourteenth
Amendments required state courts to provide lawyers at no cost to defendants in criminal
cases.
That decision sparked the creation of government-funded programs to provide legal
counsel to indigent defendants in most jurisdictions. Some smaller jurisdictions pay private
criminal defense attorneys to represent indigent defendants on a case-by-case basis.
Others provide legal services through private, nonprofit legal-aid offices, which contract
with the courts to accept cases. Many larger jurisdictions provide legal services through
public defender’s offices, which employ full-time attorneys at the expense of the
government.28
Although the right to counsel in the United States is far stronger than in most other
countries, some say the government has not done enough to protect the rights of criminal
defendants. Attorneys and advocates for the poor complain that representation for the
indigent is systematically underfunded and constitutionally inadequate. The American Bar
Association has set standards for appropriate caseloads for criminal defense attorneys, but
public defenders’ caseloads frequently exceed the recommendations. In many jurisdictions,
public defenders and prosecutors receive equal pay, but in others the pay for public
defenders lags far behind compensation for prosecutors. Public defenders frequently
complain that their resources—such as access to forensic testing, investigators,
administrative support staff, and expert witnesses—are not comparable to those of
prosecutors.

In 2005, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled in State v. Citizen that a judge should
“prohibit the State from going forward with prosecution” unless “adequate funds become
available to provide [for the] constitutionally protected right to counsel.” Louisiana and
other states have since allocated more resources to criminal defense. In 2005 Texas
passed the Fair Defense Act, which created a task force to study the need for indigent-
defense reform. As cases challenging the adequacy of criminal defense counsel make their
way through state and federal courts, states may be compelled to devote more resources
to reforming legal defense services.
Prison Conditions. Prisons in the United States are operated both by the federal
government and by individual state governments. For less serious crimes, offenders may
be sentenced to short terms in local jails—which also hold defendants awaiting trial—or to
alternative forms of punishment such as community service, probation, or restitution.
Conditions in American prisons are better than those in most other nations. In the United
States and other industrialized democracies, prisoners are guaranteed adequate housing,
nutrition, exercise, and medical care. Inmates have the right to practice their religions, to
send and receive mail, to use exercise facilities, and to be free from unnecessary intrusions
on their dignity and privacy. Many prisons also offer educational, work, and other
opportunities that are designed both to keep inmates occupied and to train them to play
productive roles in society when they are released. Coerced prison labor, common in some
other countries, is prohibited in the United States. American prisoners have access to legal

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