A justice of the state supreme court ordered Hampden County judges to appoint private attorneys to represent poor defendants, while Statehouse leaders cautioned it could take months to resolve the pay dispute that has led many of the lawyers to walk off the job.
On September 22, 1972, Kentucky's highest Court characterized the forced representation of indigents as an "intolerable condition" and held it was an unconstitutional taking of an attorney's property - his service to the client - without compensation. From then on no Kentucky attorney could be required to represent an indigent absent compensation. Bradshaw v. Ball, 487 S.W.2d 294 (Ky. 1972).