Alleging Idaho’s long-critiqued public defense system has worsened despite the state’s reform effort, the ACLU of Idaho asked the Idaho Supreme Court to intervene. Following the ACLU of Idaho’s 2015 lawsuit that alleged Idaho’s public defense system violated low-income people’s right to counsel guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment of the U.

The organization alleges that some people have been held in jail for weeks or months without meeting with state-assigned defense attorneys.

Idaho’s new public defense system is “headed for a disaster” unless the Idaho Supreme Court intervenes, the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho said in new court filings.

The ACLU of Idaho is seeking the release of defendants lacking legal representation amid turmoil in the state’s public defense system.

The ACLU of Idaho said the state’s new public defense system is leaving hundreds, if not thousands, of indigent defendants without lawyers, violating their constitutional rights.