Saturday's Kansas City Star carries the editorial, "Missouri needs more public defenders."
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1963 that states, under the Sixth Amendment, must provide legal counsel to defendants who face possible jail time but can’t afford a lawyer.
But public defender systems in some states contend, with good reason, that they are too overloaded to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities.
And:
The typical full-time public defender in Missouri has a workload of close to 300 cases a year. The U.S. Department of Justice’s recommended standard is no more than 225 cases.
The brutal workload and low pay cause high turnover among lawyers, which costs taxpayers and delays justice.
In some states the situation is even worse. Public defenders in the Miami area handle as many as 500 cases a year, The New York Times reported this week.
State legislatures are facing a difficult year. But indigent defense is a constitutional obligation, not a discretionary expense.
In Missouri, the number of cases has increased by more than 12,000 over the last eight years, but the system has added no new staff members.
Trish Hollenbeck reports, "Lawyers see different pay rates from county! County paying experienced public defenders each about $10,000 less than newly hired deputy prosecutor," from the Sunday Northwest Arkansas Times.
Two experienced lawyers paid by the county who work in the Washington County Public Defender's Office will receive raises next year, but their salaries will still not equal the amount paid to a newly hired county-funded attorney in the 4 th Judicial District Prosecutor's Office.
It means that one of the lawyers with the Public Defender's Office who has 18 years of experience will be making about $ 7, 000 less than the new lawyer in the Prosecutor's Office, which covers Washington and Madison counties.
The pay issue came up September at a Washington County Quorum Court budget meeting, when the Public Defender's Office asked to increase salaries for its two county-paid lawyers, Autumn Tolbert and Julie Tolleson. Tolleson had 18 years of legal experience before she went to the Public Defender's Office. Tolbert recently passed the bar exam and was hired as an attorney with the office after she had been a law clerk there for several years.
The original request for Tolleson was to move her from $ 37, 000 to $ 60, 000 a year, while the request for Tolbert was to go from $ 37, 000 to $ 44, 000 annually.
Quorum Court members tabled the matter and came back last month with an alternative: That Tolleson's salary will go from $ 37, 000 to $ 47, 000 next year, while Tolbert's salary will increase from $ 36, 000 to $ 44, 000.
Finance Chairman H. L. Goodwin Jr. 's recommendation was to review during the 2010 budget process and increase Tolbert to $ 42, 000 and Tolleson to $ 52, 500. Since Tolleson has 18 years of experience, including certification to try death penalty cases, this "would be in keeping with the newly approved hiring practices"of Job Evaluation / Salary Administration Program employees with extensive experi- ence, according to a memo last month from Goodwin detailing the recommendation. JESAP is designed to keep county employees' salaries competitive with comparable jobs in the private sector.
StandDown's indigent defense index is here.
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