Fight ‘Em ‘Til We Can’t

Almost anyone involved with the Office of the State Public Defender in Montana can tell you: This first 18 months has been a little rocky. There’s not enough money and that means there’s not enough people or other resources to fulfill the mandates set for the Office by the legislature and the ACLU case that started this whole ball rolling. Of course, those are the same problems plaguing indigent defense systems nationwide; usually it’s just a matter of degree. Take, for example, Missouri, where it appears things have truly reached a state of crisis.

That story doesn’t provide much detail, but it does suggest the attorneys are stuck between a rock and a hard place. The courts are saying they’re personally liable for inadequate or ineffective assistance of counsel, regardless of the fact that the legislature won’t provide them the resources they need to do their jobs. So what is a lawyer to do? Have they begun refusing to take cases? That might be a start. Of course, then the article says the legislature is “considering” a bill that would allow the lawyers to refuse to take case. Um, what? You mean to say there’s some law saying they can’t refuse? Even when their rules of professional conduct say they must refuse if they cannot adequately represent new clients? Whoa.

Obviously no matter how bad things seem, they could always get worse….

Meanwhile, it sounds like the Vermont Supreme Court just issued a fascinating opinion on speedy trial delays. If the news article is correct, it says that public defenders are part of “the state,” so delay caused by a public defender is attributable to the state, not to the defendant. Crazy. I mean, it actually might be a more fair way to look at it in many cases where a public defender’s heavy workload means he/she isn’t ready for trial and has to ask for more time through no fault of the defendant, but still, this decision would turn speedy trial analysis upside down in Montana.

A young man in Evergreen, MT (near Kalispell) is being charged with negligent homicide after a 19-month old girl he was supposed to be watching allegedly picked up the loaded pistol he had beside him on his bed and ended up shot in the head when he tried to grab the pistol back from the child. Whatever happened, this story is a very sad one.

Just two things: First, the JP up there set bond for this young man at $200k; if this had happened in Billings I would not have been surprised to see $500k or more. We’ve seen a couple $1 million bonds in the last year, which is insane.

Second, in light of stories like this, how can anyone seriously argue that the solution to violent crime is for more people to be armed? (E.g., here or here.) I realize the issues are not identical — guns in private homes v. guns in public places such as schools, but still, what seems clear is that more people w/more guns means more deaths.

Things sound pretty bad for public defenders in Missouri:

Beginning in 2008, Missouri State Public Defender offices across the state will accept only the most serious of the cases referred to them.

Otherwise, the public defender system can afford to contract out 3,000 cases to private attorneys. After that, cases will be refused by the public defender system, and left to the courts to decide what to do.

It’s not quite the “nuclear option” — the decision to take no more cases — that the state Public Defender Commission considered, but narrowly rejected, earlier this year after a consultant described the Missouri public defender system as being in a crisis. But it comes close.

The system’s crisis was described in a 2005 report commissioned by the Missouri Bar as the 47th lowest funded state public defender system in the nation and “on the verge of collapse.”

In the last three months alone, the Boone County public defender’s office has received 1,134 new cases, 378 cases a month, or an average of 31 new cases a month or one new case a day for each lawyer, Deputy Director Cathy Kelly said.

It sounds like taxpayers and legislators in Missouri don’t care much about the constitution. You can’t care about the constitution while at the same time you refuse to provide the resources necessary to defend those accused of crimes.

I’d love to see that report saying MO has the 47th lowest funded state public defender system in the nation. What’s the lowest funded? What’s the best? Where are the top 10 best funded systems? What is life like there? [tags]MO, funding, caseloads, budgets, crisis[/tags]

It’s apparently been a big news day for public defenders. In what has to be something of a nightmare for the PDs, shots were fired into the offices of the Indianapolis public defender. Can’t you just imagine a PD’s office swarming with cops? Yikes.

Meanwhile, a “loony lawyer” in the Bronx who apparently kicked his client twice in open court while the man was in shackles is being investigated again. Apparently David Feige wrote about this in his book, indefensible, which I highly recommend. (I read it last year, but I don’t remember that part.)

Closer to home, homicides are way up in Twin Falls, Idaho, putting a big strain on the public defenders there.

With an ever-changing cast of inexperienced deputies, Public Defender Marilyn Paul will handle six murder cases this year, working more or less alone.

Paul did not respond to requests for comment for this article, but 5th District Trial Court Administrator Linda Wright said “Her office is always busy. It’s just got to be a hair-puller.”

Down south, Georgia’s relatively new system of statewide criminal defense is under attack with at least one person ranting that the state system is not working and should be dismantled:

“I would like to call in a Rant about the Public Defender’s office and the article that the staff may be furloughed. I think that it completely needs to be given back to the counties and the state needs to stay out of it. We had a better system, at least in the Tifton circuit, before the state got hold of it.”

Meanwhile, in Florida, one public defender is running a clothing drive for the benefit of his clients:

Public Defender Bob Wesley is holding his annual clothing drive, seeking donations of suits, jackets, skirts — any sort of professional attire that might allow criminal defendants to wear something other than a jumpsuit or raggedy clothes when appearing before a judge and jury. IThe office will collect clothes Saturday December 22, 2007 from 10am to 2pm in front of the courthouse 435 North Orange Avenue. They are especially in need of men’s clothing in smaller sizes. And if you doubt the value of this effort, consider that I know some judges make clothing donations themselves.

Kudos to Mr. Wesley. What a brilliant idea!

Read the comments to this story about a man recently convicted of his 10th DUI. The prosecutors read these comments they apparently take them seriously because they are becoming more and more difficult to deal with on such cases as a consequence.
[tags]DUI[/tags]