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Cash-Strapped Maryland Public Defender Office Ends Contracts With Private Attorneys
The National Law Journal
September 30, 2008
The Maryland Office of Public Defender recently announced it will no longer contract with private attorneys to handle an estimated 10,000 cases annually in which it has conflicts because the office has no money to pay them.
The policy change takes effect this week, according to the office's spokeswoman, Kimberlee Schultz.
"We've gone to the [state] Department of Budget and Management several times over the past few months and explained that we are in a difficult situation and underfunded," she said. "We've pretty much exhausted that avenue."
The office handles about 200,000 cases per year, of which about 5 percent, or 10,000, involve indigent defendants referred to private attorneys when there is a conflict in their cases. Private attorneys are paid $50 per hour, for a total cost of $4.7 million.
"One of the reasons this is the area we made the choice to cut is it is one of the few areas where the public defender has discretion," explained Schultz. "Ninety percent of our budget is salaries. We have to pay our leases and electric bills. Panel attorneys are a discretionary area and we can still fulfill our constitutional mandate by cutting in that area."
Although some state judges and others have suggested seeking more pro bono help from local lawyers, that is not a realistic option, said Neil I. Jacobs of the Law Office of Neil I. Jacobs in Rockville, Md., and president of the Maryland Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
"The Public Defender Office went through a similar situation about seven years ago and there was an attempt by several judges to get some of the larger law firms to step in," he recalled. "One of the problems is a lot of the attorneys they might be asking aren't fully versed in criminal law."
Cases with conflicts, said Jacobs, often involve multiple defendants and often are more complex than a traffic or drunk driving case.
The Maryland Court of Appeals has the power to appoint attorneys, he added, but funding has to come out of the judiciary budget. "They don't have money for criminal appointments, just for representing kids in domestic cases," he said, adding that a recent court decision denies expert fees and other litigation expenses to defendants not represented by the Public Defender Office even if a defendant becomes indigent during private representation.
"I think the legislature needs to relook at the Public Defender budget in general," said Jacobs. "This is just the tip of the iceberg. They have had to shut down some of their community offices. They can't refill vacant staff attorney positions. It's not just panel attorneys. It's a much larger issue."
It is a "symptom of the economic times," said Schultz. "The governor has a budget shortfall and agencies are making difficult decisions."
