The Lower Criminal Courts



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English | ISBN: 0367219301 | 2019 | 182 pages | PDF | 3 MB

This book explores misdemeanor courts in the United States by focusing on the processing of misdemeanor crimes and the resultant consequences of conviction, such as loss of employment and housing, the imposition of significant fines, and loss of liberty―all amounting to the criminalization of poverty that happens in many U.S. misdemeanor courts. A major concern is the lack of due process employed in lower courts. Although the seminal case of Gideon v. Wainwright required the appointment of counsel to individuals too poor to hire counsel in felony cases, it was not until 1967, when the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice found a crisis in the lower courts, that the Supreme Court extended the right to counsel to some (though not all) prosecutions of misdemeanor offenses.
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