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Local Governance and Redistributive Policy: Explaining Local Funding for Public Defense

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Andrew Lucas Blaize Davies  and
Alissa Pollitz Worden
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Abstract

In many American states, public defense is provided at the county rather than state level (Langton & Farole 2009). Local governments have discretion over implementing and funding the right to counsel, resulting in considerable variability in programs and funding levels. Placing this issue in the theoretical context of redistributive policies and politics, we investigate decisions on funding this service across upstate New York counties. Using as a point of departure Paul Peterson's classic explication of community politics, we first model variation in funding as a function of counties' fiscal capacity, need for services, and costs of supplying legal representation. We also test Peterson's prediction that local political factors will play little if any role in budget decisions. Second, through interviews with program administrators we explore the characters of twelve defender programs in which expenditures departed from the model's predictions. We find that three factors—which we term “influence,” “infrastructure,” and “ideas”—also vary directly with levels of funding. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for theoretical thinking about due process policies and local politics, and for policy debate over how best to ensure adequate counsel in criminal court.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 313 - 345
Copyright
© 2017 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

We are grateful to the delegates who attended the 2013 Law & Society Association Annual Meeting, held in Boston, MA, where an earlier version of this paper was presented, and to the several anonymous reviewers who responded to our work. We also gratefully acknowledge the assistance of providers of indigent legal services across New York with data collection. The findings, analysis and discussion presented in this article are attributable solely to the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the New York State Office of Indigent Legal Services.

References

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