In a few states, reform has already begun. In the wake of a 1993 court ruling in Louisiana, last July the state supreme court established a Louisiana Indigent Defense Board, which is charged with setting standards for case loads, attorney-client relationships and distribution of state funds. Carolyn Rader, a defense attorney in Indianapolis, says it is common for such clients to deplete their savings or go into debt if they face criminal charges. Car-service dispatcher Chris Lampropoulos from Queens, New York, was charged with felonious assault on a taxi driver after a car accident. Other extras were simply too expensive.
Juries love visual aids.
In the end, Lampropoulos was found guilty of a lesser charge and probably avoided prison time. The man's defense was that he is impotent, and he underwent a medical test that bolstered that claim. The man and his wife, a clerical worker, sold their house and moved into a cheaper apartment so he could pay his legal bills. They may not have started that way, but for anyone other than the super-rich, they will be indigent before the case is over. Virginia Depper was sitting in her bedroom on a quiet October evening near Tucson, Arizona, when two bullets shattered her window.