Publication Date
2025
Publication Title
Public Law & Legal Theory
Abstract
In federal courts across the country, judges are locking defendants in jail before trial without first giving them a lawyer. This deprivation-of-counsel crisis not only violates the statutory, regulatory, and administrative right to counsel at initial appearance hearings, but may even contravene the Sixth Amendment. This article builds on our Freedom Denied report—the first nationwide study of federal pretrial detention—and new data collected since. It makes three primary contributions. First, we explain the sources and nature of the right to counsel at federal initial appearance hearings (the first bail hearing in federal court). Second, we provide a data-driven illustration of the scope of the federal access-to-counsel problem and explain how judges’ failure to appoint counsel guts the enforcement of the substantive rights guaranteed to defendants at initial appearance hearings. Third, we draw on our prior interventions, as well as those of the judicial and executive branches, to offer practical solutions for rectifying the problem.
Number
25-38
Recommended Citation
Siegler, Alison M. and Lessnick, Jaden M., "Pretrial Detention Without Counsel" (2025). Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers. 25-38.
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/public_law_and_legal_theory/966
