According to media reports, on June 9th, local time, YINGYING ZHANG disappeared on the way to sign a rental contract. Now more than two months have passed, and there is still no news from YINGYING ZHANG.
On September 1, three lawyers of Christensen, a Zhang Yingying kidnapping suspect, submitted a motion to the court, demanding the termination of the agency right. On September 8th, Zhang Yingying's kidnapping case was retried. The judge agreed to the request of the original lawyer group of the suspect, dismissed his agent for the suspect and agreed to appoint a public defender to represent the suspect.
Why is there a rule in the United States to assign lawyers to suspects? This rule comes from the Sixth Amendment to the United States Federal Constitution. There is a provision in the Sixth Amendment that every criminal has the right to have a defense lawyer. If the criminal suspect is financially unable to hire a criminal defense lawyer, he can be represented by a public defender.
This lawyer will represent the suspect in the whole trial process, including the pre-trial investigation and interrogation stage, the whole trial process, the judge's sentencing process, at least the first appeal. The suspect needs to show his income and property to the court to prove that he can't pay the lawyer's fee, and then the judge will consider appointing a government lawyer to represent the suspect. In this case, the cost of court-appointed lawyers is borne by the government.
In the United States, governments at all levels have specialized legal institutions to defend poor criminal defendants, usually called public defender's offices. The Office of the Federal Public Defender is a department of the federal government, and its personnel belong to federal employees.
At the same time, in federal law, the federal public defender's office can ask the court to appoint a private lawyer to represent the case, and the expenses will be paid by the federal public defender's office. There are certain restrictions on the payment of such fees, which are much lower than those of private lawyers.