Sue Burrell Interviewed Regarding Appointed Counsel
YLC Staff Attorney Sue Burrell was interviewed in connection with an investigative article on the appointed counsel system for delinquency cases in Los Angeles County. The Board of Supervisors has called for an assessment of the system after research showed worse outcomes for youth represented by appointed counsel than if they had been represented by a public defender. As part of our work in the MacArthur Foundation’s Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network, Sue wrote a law review article about appointed counsel contracts, singling out the Los Angeles appointment panels as an example of underfunding in indigent defense systems. The Los Angeles lawyers are paid less than $350 per case – whether it is a murder or a shoplifting case – and must pay social workers and investigators out of that sum.
Law Review article in U.C. Davis Journal of Law and Policy