Group Sues State on Legal Aid for the Poor

    Feb. 22, 2007
    Detroit News
    By Charlie Cain

    LANSING -- The state of Michigan and Gov. Jennifer Granholm are named in a lawsuit filed this morning that claims Michigan is violating the state and federal constitutions by failing to fund and oversee a system to ensure that criminal defendants, who can't afford an attorney, receive sufficient legal representation.

    "Poor individuals are not receiving equal justice," said Michael Steinberg, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. "The state has turned its back on the crisis."

    The suit, filed in Ingham County Circuit Court, was brought by a newly formed group called Michigan Coalition for Justice, which includes the ACLU, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Michigan Public Defenders Task Force.

    The suit, which backers said could take years to be settled, seeks an injunction requiring the state to end the current system where each of the 83 counties operate and pay for their own public defenders office. Many of the counties fail to provide public defense attorneys with enough money to mount a good defense. Often there is no money to pay for investigators and legal experts that would be necessary for an attorney to adequately defend a client, said Marty Tieber, an attorney in private practice and member of the Michigan Public Defense Task Force.

    Tieber said as many as 90 percent of the people who are charged with serious crimes in Michigan are forced to use public defenders because they don't have the money to hire their own attorney, which can cost as much as $40,000. So public defenders are often attorneys fresh out of law school who may be operating out of their cars, he said.

    He said the problems in Michigan have been around for over 30 years.

    "Michigan's public defender system ranks near the bottom in every survey done in the last decade," Tieber said, adding that Michigan is one of only four states that don't provide any money to the counties to pay for public defenders.

    Liz Boyd, press secretary to Gov. Granholm, said she hadn't had the opportunity to read the suit.

    "But, obviously the governor is committed to protecting the constitutional rights of all citizens," Boyd said.

    None of the speakers at the news conference could say how much it might cost the state to run a statewide public defenders system. But they said that the $2 billion the state pays for its prison system could be reduced dramatically if those charged with a crime received top notch legal representation. Too often, they said, inferior legal representation results in people being wrongly convicted of crimes, or receiving a prison sentence far harsher than it should be.

    The suit specifically names Berrien, Genesee and Muskegon counties. But the problem is statewide and any remedy would have to address the entire state, said the ACLU's Steinberg.



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