State Supreme Court to weigh in on long-running indigent defense case

In this Wednesday, May 31, 2017 court-appointed "lawyer of the day" Merritt Hemingway defends a person charged with a crime at Cumberland County Superior Court in Portland, Maine. Gov. LePage's $6.8 billion budget includes a plan to shake up a system that currently sends millions of dollars in state money to hire private lawyers for indigent defense.

The long-running legal challenge over Maine's failure to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who can't afford them has reached the state Supreme Court. Arguments before the court today focused on whether the lower court has the authority to order defendants released from jail if they are not provided a lawyer.

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