Public Defender Pleads for Space;
    Freeze on Hiring, Despite Available Cash, Could Impede Effort to Ease Jail Crowding

    Dec. 5, 2006
    Indianapolis Star
    By Kevin Corcoran

    The county's chief public defender has imposed an indefinite hiring freeze that could make it tough to get three new Marion County courts started in January to ease jail crowding.

    David E. Cook put the freeze in effect late Friday without warning, even though he's been given millions in additional money to hire more attorneys. Cook says he needs more office space to relieve crowding in his own office.

    The new courts, which would give the county up to 36 circuit and superior courts, would oversee drug and gun cases, major felonies such as rape and robbery, and lesser felony cases.

    County officials want to reduce jail crowding by moving people more quickly through the criminal justice system so they can either be sent to state prison or released. The new courts are considered critical to making that happen.

    Federally mandated limits in the jail population have forced the early release of some inmates awaiting trial. A few of those released have gone on to commit even more serious crimes than they were charged with, including murder.

    In a letter to the Marion Superior Court's executive committee obtained by The Star, Cook stated he has lawyers stuffed in the county auditor's office and no space left in the City-County Building to put any new hires.

    "What do they want me to do, lean them against the wall? I'm not demanding fat-cat offices," Cook said. "I'm kind of at my wit's end. I can't get anybody to tell me what's going on."

    Marion County's judges say they are staying out of Cook's space spat with the city controller, who reports to Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson. Cook oversees an $18.3 million budget and nearly 220 employees.

    Marion County judges say they hope Peterson administration officials detail their plan soon, and that Cook's actions don't clog the courts and renew emergency releases from the Marion County Jail.

    The last emergency release occurred Aug. 6 after Peterson and the City-County Council made available nearly $2 million to hire more public defenders.

    "I'm crisis-weary," said Marion Superior Court Judge Cale Bradford, the presiding judge. "We don't need an office-space crisis."

    Another member of the court's executive committee, Marion Superior Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson, said the Marion County Public Defender Agency appears adequately staffed for now and the new courts should open on time.
    "We're adding new courts," Magnus-Stinson said, "but we aren't adding new cases."

    Controller Bob Clifford said Monday he has told Cook he will clear an additional 20,000 square feet within the City-County Building for Cook's offices by the first of January. But Clifford acknowledges he has not told Cook where he will find space for him in the building.

    In part, that's because Clifford hasn't broken the news to the city workers whose space Cook will take. Clifford said he's "not at liberty to say" yet which government offices will be moving out.

    Meanwhile, Clifford said, Cook should trust him and hire away.

    The Public Defender Agency already occupies the fifth floor, two-thirds of the 12th floor and a suite of offices on the 11th floor of the building's center tower. Clifford said his plan would give Cook the equivalent of two more floors.

    But Cook said he can't keep hiring without knowing more. He said he would object to an arrangement that "plasters" his attorneys, many of whom share tiny offices with several colleagues, all over the building, making his giant law practice even tougher to manage.
    Cook's office, which represents most major felony defendants in Marion County, has openings for 20 deputy public defenders in the major- and D-felony divisions and an additional six paralegals.

    Clifford asserted what Cook really wants is higher-grade digs outside the City-County Building, much like the space the Marion County prosecutor's office occupies at 251 E. Ohio St.

    Cook said he looked into leasing private office space Downtown. But Clifford and Cook agree that Marion County cannot afford to lease space in a private office building at $4 to $5 more per square foot annually than the rents charged to public agencies in the City-County Building.

    Clifford likened the hiring freeze to Cook's controversial mid-2004 decision to quit accepting new juvenile court clients unless he received $500,000 to hire 13 new attorneys. That drew a harsh rebuke from Peterson and put Cook at odds with Marion County's judges.

    "Dave is being Dave," Clifford said. "He wanted to drop a bomb. That's his way."



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