North Dakota Works to Give Defendants Fair Trials

    Dec. 12, 2006
    KXMB-TV (ND)

    What North Dakota is doing to make sure all defendants get a fair trial...

    It's your constitutional right if you're accused of a crime to have adequate representation.

    But what if you don't have money to afford an attorney?
    Donnell Preskey reports on what North Dakota is doing to make sure defendants get a fair shake in court.


    (Donnell Preskey / KX News) "It can be intimidating to sit in court accused of a crime.
    Even more overwhelming if you can't afford an attorney to defend you.

    (Robin Huseby / ND Com. on Legal Counsel for Indigents) "Every year those cases get more and more. Now up to 10,000 cases a year that someone needs an attorney on."
    Bob Martin is one of those attorneys who helps poor defendants.

    (Bob Martin / Public Defender Office) "We're all state employees, full-time attorneys, working actually against the state. It's almost shitzophrenic, the state hires us to fight the criminal process."

    It's a system new to North Dakota.

    In the past, all defendants who needed an attorney, were appointed by the court.
    Attorneys who handled the cases worked for the state on a contract basis.

    (Bob Martin) "The tricky thing about doing contract work is that a criminal contract is a bit like a cancer, it grows, it consumes all of your time and so it basically takes over your practice so that your private cases can suffer."

    To solve that problem the state opened three public defender offices this year.
    They're in Dickinson, Minot and Williston.

    Seven attorneys focus only on representing those who can't afford to hire an attorney.

    (Robin Huseby) "NW and SW those are the areas where people didn't want to take contracts anymore so we're at somewhat of a crisis with them. Everybody frustrated with trying to get attorneys to take cases. We wanted to have quality cases there."
    To cover the rest of the state there still needs to be attorneys willing to take on public defense cases.

    (Robin Huseby) "Representing poor defendants isn't a popular topic but as part of society we owe duty to make sure people have good representation."

    Governor Hoeven has also made it a priority.

    There's money in his budget to expand public defender offices into Bismarck and Fargo.
    Grand Forks will get one this spring.

    In Bismarck, Donnell Preskey KX News.

    Huesby says a majority of states have some kind of public defender systems.

    Many states went that route after the ACLU threatened suing them for inadequate representation for clients.

    Montana was one of the states.

    They've since then changed their program.



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