Passed in 1964, the Criminal Justice Act was aimed at creating mechanisms for putting the principle of court-appointed lawyers for poor defendants into practice. A recently appointed committee of judges and lawyers will review the act's five decades of implementation.

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Jon Gould, program director for the Law and Social Sciences program in NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate, will serve as reporter for the ad hoc committee to review the Criminal Justice Act.

Credit: Jon Gould