According to this recent article in the ABA Journal, criminal defense lawyers “[i]ncreasingly . . . are asking their clients to wear glasses during jury trials,” believing that juries will be more likely to acquit bespectacled defendants, who they may view as less threatening. One prosecutor characterized the strategy as an “unspoken nerd defense.” The article links to this 2008 study, which concluded that the wearing of “[e]yeglasses had an indirect effect on verdict by increasing [jurors’] ratings of [the defendant’s] intelligence, which decreased guilty verdicts.” This got me wondering: if an indigent defendant can’t afford non-prescription eyeglasses – apparently available for as little as $8 on Amazon – is he entitled to the same at the state’s expense? Maybe that seems like a frivolous question, and I admit to being a little tongue-in-cheek about it. But it is closely related to a some non-frivolous questions. For example, if an indigent defendant does not own dress clothes, must the state provide them? In Felts v. Estelle, 875 F.2d 785 (9th Cir. 1989), the court held that “the state is under an affirmative duty to provide civilian clothing in a timely fashion and, if no such clothing is in its possession, to provide reasonable funds for the purchase of acceptable attire.” The decision isn’t quite on point, though, because it was grounded in a defendant’s right not to be forced to go to trial in prison garb – in that case, the police seized, then lost, all the clothing that the defendant [...]
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