At New York County Defender Services, we read with disappointment the inaccurate claims made by several city bar organizations and others regarding the suitability of using institutional defenders to represent indigent homicide defendants (“City Bar Groups Wary of Proposed 18B Change,” NYLJ, Oct. 21, 2006). Their purported concern seemingly centers on an alleged lack of qualified attorneys at a provider like NYCDS. This concern is demonstrably and factually baseless. It also fails to appreciate the qualitative distinction between solo practitioners, no matter how skilled, and equally superb attorneys functioning as part of a cohesive organization devoted exclusively to indigent defense and its many demands.
First, critics of the city’s plan badly misstate or misapprehend the experience level of attorneys at organizations like NYCDS and especially of that subset of attorneys provider organizations would entrust with homicide defense. The average experience of our attorneys is 14 years, with 40 percent having more than 20 years experience and 50 percent meeting the First Department’s certification level for handling homicides. Fully one-third of our attorneys have handled homicides and several of them have been employed by this state’s Capital Defender Office or otherwise certified to do capital defense. These attorneys have an average of 27 years of experience and have collectively handled more than 300 homicide cases while conducting over one hundred such trials. Given those numbers, any suggestion of an experience or qualifications deficit with respect to NYCDS is plainly misguided.
