The Cole County Courthouse in downtown Jefferson City (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent). By RUDI KELLERMissouri IndependentIndigent defendants facing imprisonment must be represented by a public defender no later than two weeks after they qualify, a judge ruled this week in a case over waiting lists in thousands of criminal cases across Missouri.Phelps County Circuit Judge William Hickle, overruling the state's attempt to dismiss the case as moot because waiting lists are not currently in use, found that making a person facing incarceration wait for an attorney is unconstitutional."The issue of delaying appointment of counsel for an indigent defendant by placing the defendant on a waiting list is virtually certain to occur in the future," Hickle wrote in the ruling issued Wednesday. "The waiting list is at zero, not because respondents have renounced its use, but because the state is currently providing sufficient funding to avoid resorting to it."The cla
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