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The right to counsel is “tenuous” in a small Mississippi justice court in Yalobusha County, Mississippi, where two judges appointed lawyers for felony defendants in only 20% of the cases opened in 2022, according to an investigative report.
Mississippi is known as one of the worst states for public defense. In one lower court, most defendants went without any lawyer before indictment.
Mississippi has long been known as one of the worst states for providing a lawyer to any defendant who can’t afford one. In one rural county, most defendants in a lower court went without any lawyer before their cases were sent to a grand jury.
Mental health courts connect people to treatment and keep them out of jail. But they also often come at the price of a guilty plea, and participants say that feels like coercion.
More than 650 adult and juvenile mental health courts were operational as of 2022, according to the National Treatment Court Resource Center.