[Vision2020] Lawmaker committee grapples with public defense

[Saundra Lund]

Personally, I can't help but wonder how much improvement in the state's
public defense system could have already taken place if not for the fiscally
foolish decisions made by the Idaho GOP & tea baggers that have no problem
finding funds to throw at for-profit outside corporations like CCA & Corizon
Correctional Healthcare that make huge profits for providing flatly
unacceptably substandard "services."

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/08/15/2708323/lawmaker-committee-grapples
-with.html

Lawmaker committee grapples with public defense

Published: August 15, 2013 Updated 20 hours ago
By REBECCA BOONE - Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho - A committee of Idaho lawmakers has begun the complicated task
of trying to bring the state's public defense system in line with
constitutional requirements.

Members of the Public Defense Interim Committee met in Boise on Thursday to
hear from state and national experts who warned that Idaho's system is so
inadequate that it's likely unconstitutional, and as a result, it's only a
matter of time until a lawsuit forces the state to make major changes.

"Idaho must aggressively improve the system it has today," said Idaho
Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Burdick. "This will take tremendous
political courage."

The state's legal community has been on notice for years. In 2010, a report
from the National Legal Aid and Defender Association found that Idaho isn't
adequately satisfying its Sixth Amendment obligations for defendants. That
prompted the Idaho Criminal Justice Commission to study the issue and the
commission asked lawmakers earlier this year to take up the matter. The
interim committee is expected to present its recommendations and any
proposed bills to the full Legislature next year.

Among the problems noted by David Carroll, an expert with the 6th Amendment
Center in Boston, is the way Idaho pays for public defenders, the lack of
training requirements for those attorneys, and the lack of independence that
they are afforded. Those challenges make it difficult, or sometimes
impossible, to meet national justice standards.

Many Idaho counties contract with private attorneys to serve as public
defenders, said Idaho State Appellate Public Defender Sara Thomas. But
because there are no guidelines limiting caseloads, and because many of
those contracts are flat-fee contracts, there's a built-in incentive to
spend as little time on each case as possible, she said.

"Every single thing a public defender does on a case actually takes money
out of their pocket," Thomas said. In some cases, public defenders have to
ask county commissioners or a judge for permission before they may hire
investigators or expert witnesses, and generally counties don't provide them
with computers or subscriptions to electronic case law databases, putting
the public defenders - and their impoverished clients - at a distinct
disadvantage against better-funded prosecutors.

But Daniel Chadwick with the Idaho Association of Counties cautioned
lawmakers that counties just don't have the money to make big changes to the
current system.

"We don't have an open checkbook. I don't care what anybody thinks,"
Chadwick said. "We are limited by the resources available. ... The state
requires the services but the state in no way provides the services."

Everyone agrees that the system is constitutionally deficient, Chadwick
said, but fixing it will require "serious costs."

"I don't know that the counties can bear those costs. And it will require
new revenue," he said.

National justice standards state that if an attorney is handling just felony
cases, he or she shouldn't do more than 150 cases a year, said Carroll.
Public defenders in Ada County carried 952 cases each last year, he said,
and the situation is similar in other counties.

That often means public defenders are meeting their clients for the first
time during court proceedings, and they're urging clients to plead guilty
because they don't have time to investigate and form a thorough defense,
Carroll said. That, in turn, means taxpayers are paying exponentially more
to house those defendants in prisons and jails.

John Gross with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers told
lawmakers they needed to be prepared to spend money to fix the system.

"The reality is it kind of falls to all of you, for better or worse, to
bring the system kicking and screaming into the modern era," Gross said. 

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