Group: SCOTUS Implicitly Backed Debtors' Prisons

No automatic right to lawyer in U.S. civil cases: court

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that states did not have an automatic duty to provide counsel in civil courts in the case of a divorced father who was jailed for failing to pay child support.

By a majority 5-4 vote, the justices found that while the South Carolina father's rights had been violated because he was not given free counsel, US states did not have to provide such advice in all civil contempt cases.

The case was being highly watched and had become emblematic of what civil rights groups have called a trend towards "debtors' prisons" in America.

In the case before the Supreme Court, Michael Turner had been ordered to pay $51.73 a week in child support. But he had regularly fallen behind, and spent short spells in prison.

MORE...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/20/no-automatic-right-to-lawyer-in-u-s-civil-cases-court/

But the majority (the liberals and Kennedy) held that the Due Process Clause required various procedural safeguards that weren't met in this case.

explicitly support the idea of debtor's prisons and slavery for debtors.

worst industrialized nation on the Planet.

civil commitments are by definition civil. Does this ruling mean that a person who is allegedly mentally ill and dangerous would not be entitled to legal representation? And if there is no legal representation, there would be no way to arrange for an independent mental health assessment, so the probable cause hearing would in effect become the trial.