The Effects of Holistic Defense on Case Outcomes: A Natural Experiment in the Bronx

• In Event: NIJ's Research on Indigent Defense

Abstract

The project’s primary goal is to better understand the effect of holistic defense services on case outcomes by using the fortuity of a natural experiment in the Bronx. Holistic indigent defense services, in which an indigent defendant is aided by a team of professionals to address the defendant’s range of needs, is a promising but largely untested development in the provision of indigent defense. Proponents of the approach argue that this approach can lead not just to better outcomes for the defendant, but a long-term improvement in clients’ lives, reduced crime, and improved relationships between the community and the criminal justice systems. Fortuitously, the counsel assignment processes in the Bronx, New York creates a natural experiment that affords an opportunity to rigorously measure the effect of this approach. The Bronx Defenders, a key pioneer of the holistic defense approach, represents clients that happen to be arraigned during certain days of the week. Other defendants arraigned at other times are assigned representation from a well-regarded conventional public defender organization. This counsel assignment system offers a natural experiment that permits rigorous measurement of the effect of the holistic defense approach.

Author

• Paul Heaton, University of Pennsylvania Law School