Court Opinion

ID: 9759220
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:09:17.373768+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:00.263823
License: Public Domain

Robert H. Dudley, Justice, concurring. I concur in holding that the power to decide which attorneys must represent indigent defendants resides in the courts and not in the legislature. However, the majority opinion, without more, leaves open the real possibility that indigent defendants may have an attorney appointed to represent them who is not qualified to practice criminal law. Such a result is unfair to the indigent defendant as well as to the appointed attorney. The statute expresses a common sense approach to the problem. It provides that an attorney should not be appointed to represent an indigent defendant when that attorney: (1) has not taken a law school course in criminal law in the last twenty-five years, and (2) does not hold himself out as practicing in the field, and (3) does not regularly engage in the practice of criminal law. Under our rule-making authority, I would adopt the statute as a rule of this Court. See Ricarte v. State, 290 Ark. 100, 717 S.W.2d 488 (1986). Holt, C.J., joins in this concurrence.