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On Overburdened Public Defenders July 9, 2006
Jefferson City News-Tribune
American jurisprudence provides that criminal defendants are entitled to the best defense they can muster.
Wealth helps the mustering process. Witness murder defendant O.J. Simpson assembling a "dream team" of high-priced lawyers to argue, and win, a verdict of innocence in the stabbing death of his wife.
Few criminal defendants possess similar wealth. Many - nearly 80 percent - are indigent.
And when poor people are accused of crimes, the best defense they can muster is provided by the Missouri Public Defender System.
The system is beleaguered.
From July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2006, 86,330 criminal trial cases were handled by the system's 350 public defenders.
During that same one-year period, 906 cases were defended by the four attorneys assigned to both Cole and Osage counties. ... Exit interviews show a nearly 100 percent turnover rate with the top reasons for leaving being the volume of cases and salaries not high enough to keep up with increased law school debt.
Why should the law-abiding public care?
Two reasons.
First, high turnover in any job creates inefficiency. Time spent gaining familiarity is not time spent producing.
Second, an inadequate defense is among reasons convictions get overturned. The judicial system then must retry the case, often with the disadvantage of deceased witnesses and stale evidence, and always with an increased cost to the public.
Missouri has formed a Senate interim committee to study these concerns and bring proposals to the Legislature when it convenes in January.
We suspect the panel will find no easy solutions, including the preferred solution - prevent more crimes from occurring. |
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National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)
1660 L St., NW, 12th Floor, Washington, DC 20036
(202) 872-8600 • Fax (202) 872-8690 •
assist@nacdl.org
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