A collection of civil rights attorneys and a New York City law firm filed a class action lawsuit in February, hoping to change the racist and unconstitutional legal system in Louisiana.

The Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and Section 13 of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974 guarantee the right to meaningful and effective assistance of counsel to every person facing criminal charges punishable by imprisonment. Without access to the effective assistance of counsel, the poor stand alone against the full unchecked power of the State. They are denied not only their right to a fair trial, but are powerless to exercise the other fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, such as the right to speedy trial, to confront witnesses, to impartial juries; the rights against unreasonable search and seizure and self-incrimination; and the right to be free from excessive bail, fines, and cruel and unusual punishment.

As the United States Supreme Court said more than 50 years ago in its decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, the right to counsel exists because “our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law” and “[t]his noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with a crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.”

Louisiana has funded their public defender system using the unique, and useless, “use-pay system” that relies on fines and fees, instead of taxes. This has led to people being charged or arrested for things as small as marijuana “possession,” who wait in prison for months to even see a judge. In many cases people will have a plea deal created around them with no lawyer present to represent them. It’s also led the public defenders office in recent months to plead for a respite from the caseloads being dropped on their offices. The Daily Beast reports that 85 percent of people “accused” of a crime in Louisiana are black, and the attack on civil rights is very clearly one based in class and race.

A judge will rule on whether or not the motion for a class action suit can go forward, but considering that Louisiana is willing to waste a million dollars litigating whether or not a prison can have nine air-conditioners, we all clearly know that there’s money in our system—just not for people of color.