In the United States, the adversarial justice system is based on ensuring that a criminal defendant receives a fair trial. The Sixth Amendment gives defendants the right to legal representation in criminal trials even if they cannot afford it. Every city and county in the United States guarantees the accused the right to an attorney. There are several ways that cities and counties across the United States provide representation to indigent defendants. One such approach to indigent defense is public defense programs and is a popular system used by many states today. Public defense programs have been around since 1900, but have gained popularity over the years due to numerous indigent defense cases. Historically, the right to a defense was guaranteed only in federal criminal courts (Wice, 2005). A person charged with a crime in state court had no right to legal representation. Legal scholar, Professor Mason Beaney, explained this by saying, "only a few states guaranteed the right to an appointed attorney... In most jurisdictions, an attorney was appointed only in the most serious cases, often only when the crime was punishable by death" (Wice, 2005). , page 3). Many defendants, poor, illiterate, and uneducated, faced the justice system without legal assistance (Smith, 2004, p. 579). Los Angeles County began one of the first public defense programs in 1914, slowly spreading to other counties (Neubauer & Fradella, 2011, p. 176). In the 1960s, fewer than a dozen states still refused to provide lawyers to defendants who could not afford them (Smith, 2004). There was a big change in 1963, when the landmark case Gideon v. Wainwright transformed the way state courts applied the right to indigent defense counsel...... middle of paper....... J., & Langton, L. (2010, September/October). A national workload assessment of public defender offices []. Judging, 94(2), 87-91. Retrieved from Neubauer, DW, & Fradella, HF (2011). American courts and the criminal justice system (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Smith, C.E. (2004). Public defenders. In T. Hall, US Legal System (pp. 567-572-). [Ebscohost]. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebookU.S. Department of Justice. (2010). State Public Defender Programs, 2007 (NCJ 228229). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Weiss, M. S. (2005). A study of public defender motivations. In Public Defenders: Pragmatic and Political Motivations for Representing the Indigent (pp. 1-10). [Ebscohost]. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/Wice, P. B. (2005). Public defenders and the American justice system. Westport, CT: Praeger.