Judge rejects new public defender law
FL: A Leon County Circuit judge threw out the state Legislature’s decision to appoint a second tier of special public defenders around the state to represent needy defendants who can’t be represented by the existing elected public defenders because of a conflict of interest. ⇒
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Why is the Florida bar opposing? I wonder if it’s for legitimate reasons or because they don’t want their cash-cow of appointed cases to dry up..
Comment by Audacity — December 23, 2007 @ 4:43 pm
From the comments to that article, it looks like a couple of things are happening. First, the FL constitution apparently says public defenders must be elected, but these conflict PDs are appointed by the legislature, so some object to this on that level. But it also looks like the new conflict counsel system would shift a lot of costs from the state to counties, so the counties object. It’s hard to see how lawyers are worrying about a drying up cash-cow — sounds like the conflict counsel office is just as underfunded as the regular PDs. But who knows?
Comment by tc — December 24, 2007 @ 9:50 am