A Lawyer When It's Too Late

The June 15 editorial, "D.C. Crime Tools," supporting the civil gang injunction proposal in the "emergency" anti-crime bill up for a vote before the D.C. Council today, noted favorably that persons accused of violating these injunctions "would be entitled to court-appointed lawyers to contest criminal contempt charges." But this is too little, too late. An injunction permanently restricting those individuals' conduct and associations will already have been issued as the result of a civil lawsuit. There is no right to court-appointed counsel at these civil proceedings. Worse, council member Jack Evans's bill contains secrecy provisions allowing the court to withhold from a defendant the identity of his accusers and the substance of their accusations at these civil hearings; the information can only be given to the lawyer that the young adults targeted by these suits almost certainly will not be able to afford.

At the contempt stage, court-appointed counsel will not be permitted to revisit issues resolved in the civil case. Counsel could not argue, for example, that an individual was wrongfully accused of being a gang member based on secret witness testimony or that the injunction itself was illegitimate on constitutional grounds. Thus there would be little that court-appointed counsel could do for someone wrongfully swept up in a civil gang injunction.

AVIS E. BUCHANAN

Director,

Public Defender Service

for the District of Columbia

Washington