Nationwide Layoff Watch: Public Defenders
ATL has been providing in-depth coverage of firm layoffs, but we haven’t written much about public defenders suffering the same fate. With state budgets experiencing big squeezes, public defenders’ offices across the country are getting downsized, while their caseloads are getting upsized.
We wrote about layoffs in Kentucky, Minnesota, Florida, and Georgia back in July. In at least seven states, “public defenders’ offices are refusing to take on cases or have sued to limit them,” says the New York Times in an editorial today. It suggests that the constitutional right to counsel in state criminal proceedings is “hanging by a tattered thread:”
In a disturbing example of legal triage, a Florida judge ruled in September that the public defenders’ office in Miami-Dade County could refuse to represent many poor defendants arrested on lesser felony charges so that its lawyers could provide a better defense for other clients. Behind the ruling were some chastening statistics: Over the past three years, the average number of felony cases handled by each lawyer rose from 367 annually to nearly 500. Misdemeanor case loads rose from 1,380 to 2,225.Public defenders’ offices all over the country are reporting similar problems. The immediate result is that innocent defendants may feel pressure to plead guilty. There also is an increased risk of wrongful conviction, which means that the real offenders would go free.
The NYT recommends meeting the budget shortfall by increasing the state registration fees for lawyers and expanding pro bono representation by the private bar.
Another out-of-the-box solution would be to get rid of all those pesky drug laws.
Remember to send in all of your layoffs stories and worries to tips@abovethelaw.com.
Hard Times and the Right to Counsel [New York Times]
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"layoffs stories worries" lord. fun times for ATL but elie still sucks.
First!
BITCH SPREAD THE BUTT CHEEKS AND LET ME SMELL THE JUICY INSIDES!
Mary C. Daly, Dean of St. John's Law died--no story?
BITCH SPREAD THE BUTT CHEEKS AND LET ME SMELL THE JUICY INSIDES!
Public defenders to 50k!
Is this partially due to having more people who want to be prosecutors than defenders? If so, what if we instituted a JAG-like system, where you are assigned arbitrarily to be a prosecutor or a defender for a given case?
As it stands, it totally makes sense to me that these public defenders are refusing cases. If I were to take 2700 cases a year, I would get sued for malpractice.
6,
More like "Public defenders to $8.75/hr.!"
As far as I can tell, the market is pricing these services about at what they're worth, if not more.
Public defenders recently laid off can more than likely get a job at Ass Cravath.
OK 2x on the "butt cheeks" line was excessive. first time, funny. second time, disgusting.
ass-sampling aside, this country officially sucks.
4 - How/when did she die? I don't see any reporting of this.
Defendants shouldn't get free lawyers. They are all guilty. It's just one more way they are draining society's resources.
3 = racist
8 and 12: you are idiots. But you know that.
Less public defenders is exactly what the criminal justice system doesn't need. This is ridiculous.
(PS: Since when is ATL as mindlessly liberal as some Reed college freshman. I'm a dem, but that above drug comment + the rant on prop 8 strike me as very asinine and shallow for a law blog).
PDS to 42!
14 is probably a convicted felon who claims he's still innocent.
Defendants are also delusional. Just look at Shawshank prison. Everyone there is innocent, according to them.
Red was the only guilty man in Shawshank. Therefore, I propose that only those defendants that admit they are guilty can have lawyers.
Sincerely,
12.
Um, since you have a constitutional right to counsel, how does this denying defenders to felony defenants work?
Um, since you have a constitutional right to counsel, how does this denying defenders to felony defenants work?
17- reversed and remanded pwned?
Gee, if only there were a way to stop clogging the legal system with millions of non-violent offenders and addicts who turn to crime to feed their addiction each year.
Can't anyone think fo a way to do that?!?!
14,
Seriously? They scrape the bottom of TTTs for PDs, and you think that it does more damage not to have less of these people around?
Congratulations on graduating at the bottom of your TTT. Please tell us what PDs office you work for.
-8
@14 - Realizing the stupidy of clogging up the judicial system by prosecuting non-violent, small-time druggies isn't mindlessly liberal. It's pragmatic. You could even argue that it's conservative, in that it recognizes the limited ability of government to enforce behavioral norms, and realizes that the government's services are best allocated to protecting society from more serious offenses.
I want the justice system to find murderers and rapists, give them a fair trial, and then fry their asses. Some lowlife with a couple of ounces of weed in his glove compartment shouldn't be a big priority.
14, don't feed the trolls.
23=14=TTT grads=PDs
21: Not everyone who works for "the good" and doesn't buy in to the race for prestige is/went to a TTT. Just because someone makes different choices than you doesn't make them wrong.
And no, I'm not a PD, although I desperately wanted to be a DA at one point and currently work for a firm where I get money + a life and am ok with not making $200,000/year since I also don't have to work weekends.
22: fair point, although i do think it is a progressive policy. And I still take issue with this blog having any ideological slant.
Although, frankly I take issue with this blog in general. Mostly because I like to think lawyers are trained in intelligent and witty argument, as oppose to the comments one finds at ATL. (see e.g. 24 who makes a superb, though, factually inaccurate statement.) I think ATL should take a page from the old Gawker sites and start doing by invite only/hard-core banning, plus get a new editor.
14=#1= future PD, why not.
Prosecuting (a) non-violent drug offenses and (b) all juvenile offenses that aren't actually serious crimes against persons - almost none are - are enormously economically wasteful.
As to why defendents don't just say "F you, no lawyer, no trial"...most of them are sitting in jail.
Laid off from what?
- Really?
Laid off from what?
- Really?
Having been a prosecutor, I feel like I must weigh in.....
As to PDs, it is such a mixed bag. Some of them were much more skilled and able than "high priced" defense attys. whose only skill was begging for a deal. Some PDs are really masters at trying a case.
However, the problem with PDs is that so many are completely incompetent. Our office used to hate to go to court when a certain PD was there. It wasn't b/c they did anything obnoxious, they were just so blatantly incompetent that you never felt right about convicting someone even if they were guilty. The inability of opposing counsel always made you wonder if the defendant was actually innocent and just getting a raw deal from an "attorney" who didn't even know how to introduce evidence.
I think that is where a lot of these "cuts" come from...specifically, if you are a legislator who is an attorney and you see some of these incompetents in action, it is pretty simple to think "Why the hell are we giving this idiot a salary w/great benefits when we are cutting out a teacher at the local elementary school?"
The logical answer might be better salaries and training for PDs, but economics is the study of scarcity....
Public defenders are the combination of two of the lowest forms of human beings: [1] criminal defense attorneys and [2] government employees.
Good riddance.
I hope this affects the pompous 'public servants' who have been ridiculing big law associates in this economic downturn for our 'poor choices'...
18,
Chief Defenders have the ethical obligation to refuse to accept more clients than their office can competently handle. See ACCD Ethics Opinion 03-01. I think it's fair to say that 500 felony cases/atty qualifies as being too much. So the PDs are not the ones at fault here.
However, the state does have an obligation, under Gideon, to provide for indigent defense. So what's the answer? Either increase the sheer number of PDs (while it would be nice to pick up a bunch of Heller associates, none of them can do criminal defense worth a damn - and defense is more than just a warm body/doc reviewer) OR, and this is where Elie has it right, reduce the sheer number of laws that prosecutors have the discretion to charge.
So either take more money from people in order to fulfill the state's obligations, or make society better off by ending the criminalization of acts that do not harm society. The libertarian in me says reduce the state's power.
First of all, plenty of very bright people would love to work as public defenders. There is something to be said for doing good work and giving back to your community at the same time. Also, PD's are out there hard protecting other people's right in order to assure that your rights are similarly protected in the case that you are wrongfully accused. In this country, arrest does NOT equal conviction and these people deserve capable not overburdened attorneys just like defendants who can afford to pay.
First of all, plenty of very bright people would love to work as public defenders. There is something to be said for doing good work and giving back to your community at the same time. Also, PD's are out there hard protecting other people's right in order to assure that your rights are similarly protected in the case that you are wrongfully accused. In this country, arrest does NOT equal conviction and these people deserve capable not overburdened attorneys just like defendants who can afford to pay.
I will say, however, that there is a problem with compensation. If you go to a good school and do NOT get a significant scholarship (good enough to be there, not "unique" enough to be there free) the average grad (I said AVERAGE) is coming out with $120,000 in debt.
I'm not really sure (not having had to do it) how someone with that kind of debt or more can pay this off on a salary of $50,000/year (if they're lucky, I had one offer for a DA's office at $44,000) AND afford to live, much less raise a family, etc...
So you end up with those few "unique" people who don't have a lot of debt AND still care about the poor and disenfranchised of our society as public defenders (I would guess those are the "good PDs") or the people who couldn't get in to a good school (and probably don't want to be PDs) or the people who couldn't make it anywhere else.
Hell, if PDs even paid $70,000 I know a lot of people (with $150,000 loans) who would take it and try to make it work (DINK or similar).
Now, this calculation changes in certain parts of the country, here in CA they pay more (and I would hope in NY) but cost of living is also ridiculously higher.
36, some people are also willing to make sacrafices to do something they are passionate about (people like me). I live in NY and they only pay $48k for PDs but I could never imagine sitting in an office doing research all day and never entering a courtroom. I went to a good NY law school to do this job and I do it because I love it, definitely not for the pay.
I agree with your comment about the types of people they are able to attract with the low pay, but hopefully they are not just attracting weirdos but people like me who are committed and passionate.
"Another out-of-the-box solution would be to get rid of all those pesky drug laws."
Amen. That would more than do the trick. And 14, that' s far from a "liberal rant." It's a legitimate point from an economic and individual rights perspective.
Many public defenders are not government employees. They work for non-profits that have a contract with the government, meaning no pension, etc.
Additionally, my PD agency is hardly scraping the bottom of TTT--it's plucking from the top. Federal appellate clerks, plus grads from Yale, NYU, Virginia, Columbia, Stanford, etc. law schools.
Heck, I left an AmLaw 25 firm after several years of practice to become a PD.
As several other commenters, I agree with Elie about drug laws (misdemeanor possession in particular should just not be criminalized in this situation).
A lot of you seem clueless about how indigent defense works in our country. There's not a shortage of lawyers because people don't want to do it for the salary; there's a shortage of lawyers (a) because state and local governments are broke and not hiring at a pace covers the cases and (b) because politiicans have disdain for criminal defendants and won't make spending to protect their rights a priority, even if it is constitutionally mandated.