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174 U. Pa. L. Rev. Online 1 (2025)

handle is hein.journals/pennumbra174 and id is 1 raw text is: UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA LAW REVIEW ESSAY COUNSEL FEES AND PROCEDURAL JUSTICE ALEXANDER HANNA t INTRO DU CTION ............................................................................. 1 I. HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND ................................3 II. DOCTRINAL FRAMEWORK....................................................... 7 III. LITIGATING THROUGH PROCEDURAL DUE PROCESS ..................11 C O N CLU SIO N .............................................................................. . . 16 INTRODUCTION Imagine you are charged with a felony. You are indigent, so the judge appoints a lawyer to represent you. Several months later, you are convicted and sentenced to almost nine years in prison. To your surprise, however, you are also charged nearly $3,000 for your court-appointed lawyer-a cost you assumed the state would bear when it chose to prosecute you. The court did not consider your ability to pay when it imposed this fee. Once released from prison, you are homeless and unemployed, but this does not prevent the state t J.D. Candidate, University of Virginia School of Law (Expected 2026). I would like to thank Danny Zemel and Madhavi Subramaniam for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts; Maisie Osteen, the 2024-2025 Civil Rights Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law, and the Legal Aid Justice Center, all of whose incredible advocacy inspired the topic of this piece; and the editors of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review for their diligent efforts in selecting, editing, and publishing my work. Any errors are my own. (1)