Crime Crackdown Strains Defenders

    Feb. 11, 2007
    St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    By Heather Ratcliffe


    ST. LOUIS — City officials didn't need a book of statistics to tell them some neighborhoods have serious crime problems. But last year's stinging "most dangerous city" label added to the pressure to fight back.

    That meant more police to make arrests and more prosecutors to take charges to court. But every case requires a defense lawyer too, and no provision has been made to bolster the public defender system, which represents half or more of the accused.

    A report released last month by the Senate Interim Committee on the Missouri State Public Defender System supports concerns that the load of additional defendants might clog the courts unless the system grows to accommodate them.

    That system is already in "crisis mode," said the legislative committee report, from a study spurred by the Missouri Bar. Advertisement

    "The probability that public defenders are failing to provide effective assistance of counsel and are violating their ethical obligations to their clients increases every day," it said.

    The report said the state-funded office has not established a new position in six years, while the caseload for its 350 attorneys has grown by 12,000 in that time. In a typical recent year, the turnover is one lawyer in five.

    The state's public-defender system "has no mechanism with which to control or reduce its workload to correspond with its staffing levels, short of refusing cases or throwing the state of Missouri into federal court for constitutionally violating the right of indigent clients to effective assistance of counsel," the report found.

    All this is before taking into account the St. Louis anti-crime drive, which is already causing the court docket to swell. A police Crime Suppression Team went out Jan. 1 to target especially dangerous offenders.

    Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said prosecutors charged about 30 percent more felony cases in January than December. Those 396 new cases did not represent an increase over January 2005, which had 459, but police and prosecutors said they expect more as the weather warmed.

    Eric Affholter, the district public defender for St. Louis, said, "When they do these new crime initiatives, the whole system is not involved in the process, and it's difficult to respond to it." He said his office opened 25 percent more cases in January than in other recent months.

    "Even without this new anti-crime team, there are so many problems in our system," Affholter said. "They are adding to the crisis."

    He said that last year, each of his lawyers managed about 300 cases. Statewide, public defenders handle about 80 percent of the criminal cases; in St. Louis, it's about 50 percent, he said.

    Circuit Clerk Mariano Favazza and Presiding Judge Thomas Grady said the clerks and judges were prepared for the increased volume. But Grady said he was concerned that the system didn't have enough trial attorneys, especially public defenders.

    Gov. Matt Blunt recommended a $2 million increase for the public defender budget for 2008, but officials said that would only meet cost-of-living raises and added supplies costs.

    Blunt promised to revise his recommendation after reading the Senate committee report, said Jessica Robinson, a spokeswoman.

    Spending more to defend accused criminals doesn't usually rank high on politicians' lists of priorities, said J. Marty Robinson, director of the public-defender system.

    "Everyone has made promises, of course," J. Marty Robinson said. "No one disagrees that we have a problem. I think we are getting attention, but change doesn't happen overnight."

    St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay visited Jefferson City earlier this month, pushing for resources for his crime-fighting initiative. He asked legislators for more money for the probation and parole officers in St. Louis. But he did not lobby on behalf of public defenders, said his chief of staff, Jeff Rainford.

    "If they are going to be the choking point in the system, we'll support them," Rainford said. "But the state is going to have to get involved."

    Money for more police and prosecutors came from passage of an Aug. 8 referendum increasing the city's graduated business license fee.

    The police department used its estimated $2.4 million increase to hire 40 new officers.

    The circuit attorney's office is using some of its $480,000 share of the revenue increase to start a Career Criminal Unit of experienced lawyers, Joyce said. She plans to hire four more attorneys for the unit, and she said she might need additional funding later.

    Police Chief Joe Mokwa said the other components of the justice system had to pull their weight. "The crime rate is not solely affected by whether the police are doing a good job or not," Mokwa said. "What can the other part of the system do to catch up?"



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