Details about this story

• Source: New York Times
• Date: September 25, 2006
• URL: Read the story
• Bylines: Jo Craven-McGinty , William Glaberson
• Topics: Courts
• Data Types: Paper Trail
• Description/Excerpt: William Glaberson of the New York Times, with assistance from Jo Craven McGinty, has a three-part series on New York's town courts, finding that "people have been sent to jail without a guilty plea or a trial, or tossed from their homes without a proper proceeding. In violation of the law, defendants have been refused lawyers, or sentenced to weeks in jail because they cannot pay a fine. Frightened women have been denied protection from abuse." Town court judges do not have to be lawyers or even have a college education, and the state has little oversight ability.