U.S. Department of Justice challenges state Chief Justices to fix access to justice systemic deficiencies
National Defender Leadership Institute
On July 26, 2010, Laurence Tribe, Senior Counsel for the United States Department of Justice, Access to Justice Initiative, delivered an important speech to the Conference of Chief Justices, challenging them to halt the disintegration of our state justice systems before they become indistinguishable from courts of third world nations. “If some of the things I’ll be asking of you, in your capacity as chief justices and as occupants of the bully pulpits in your respective states, will resemble judicial ‘activism,’ they will bear no resemblance to activism of an ideological stripe, right or left, but will bear the ‘activist’ label only to the degree that activism is understood as the opposite of passivity – a passivity that disclaims responsibility for the systems of which you are, after all, the stewards.”
The active participation of Chief Justices in reform is critical, Professor Tribe noted, to counterbalance the “hydra-headed monster” of “too many people to be served effectively” in the face of state legislators’ “appetite for imprisonment that ignores the veritable mountain of evidence which shows that alternatives to incarceration are often more effective at reducing recidivism while also less costly” and their “unwillingness to provide the legal assistance needed to provide meaningful, adequate defense.”
The often overlooked linked between broken justice systems – both civil and criminal – and escalating risks to public safety was of particular focus in the speech. Tribe stated that “clogged” and at times “corrupt” public courts lead to a “vicious cycle of cynicism and disaffection in which the system’s democratic legitimacy, the very foundation of its capacity to articulate and enforce the rule of law, disintegrates.” Tribe continued: “[T]hat in turn leads increasing numbers to flout the law.” FULL STORY
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