Episode 3: Does PA owe the poor better criminal defense? An investigation.

• Katie Meyer
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Katie Meyer was WITF’s Capitol Bureau Chief from 2016-2020. While at WITF, she covered all things state politics for public radio stations throughout Pennsylvania. Katie came to Harrisburg by way of New York City, where she worked at Fordham University’s public radio station, WFUV, as an anchor, general assignment reporter, and co-host of an original podcast. A 2016 graduate of Fordham, she earned several awards for her work at WFUV, including four 2016 Gracies.
  
  Katie is a native New Yorker, though she originally hails from Troy, a little farther up the Hudson River. She can attest that the bagels are still pretty good there.
  
  WITF's Capitol Bureau Chief Desk is partially funded through generous gifts made in the memory of Tony May through the Anthony J. May Memorial Fund.
  
  For more information about Tony May, click here.

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FILE PHOTO: The Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh.

When it comes to funding public defense for poor—or indigent—people, Pennsylvania is an outlier. The commonwealth leaves that funding totally up to the counties, and provides no statewide oversight.

It’s the only state that does so.

Over the last several months, Keystone Crossroads—a collaboration among several public radio stations—has sought to figure out exactly how that impacts poor people charged with crimes.

Because there’s no oversight of the many county public defense offices, and because their record-keeping varies so widely in style and quality, there was a lot of data we couldn’t collect. But what we did find paints a picture of a state in which, county by county, the quality of public criminal defense varies dramatically.

Reporters Emily Previti, Lindsay Lazarski, Annette John-Hall, and Min Xian join us to explain the situation. You can read and listen to the entire series here.