Koch Industries give "major grant" to NACDL to help with indigent defense

I noted in this post back in April that the Koch Brothers have a history of supporting criminal justice reform groups and efforts. That interesting story now has another interesting chapter as evidence by this new press release headlined "NACDL Selected to Receive Significant Grant from Koch Industries, Inc. to Address Nation's Profound Indigent Defense Crisis." Here is how the press release gets started:

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), the nation's preeminent organization advancing the mission of the criminal defense bar to ensure justice and due process for persons accused of crime or wrongdoing, has been selected by Koch Industries, Inc. to receive a major grant in support of NACDL's efforts to address the nation's profound indigent defense crisis.

There are two components to this generous and critical initiative:

• Significant expansion of access to training through an ambitious combination of scholarship support for indigent defenders, web-based training via the Internet, and targeted on-site training for indigent defense providers who lack adequate resources to provide comprehensive continuing education for line attorneys and supervisors.

• Examination of state level indigent defense delivery systems in order to ascertain strengths that can be replicated elsewhere as well as weaknesses and the ways in which those can be rectified.

Both components will seek to achieve the goals set forth in the American Bar Association's Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System, which are widely recognized as providing a comprehensive framework for the effective delivery of legal services for the indigent accused.