Public defender offices handled 352 cases per attorney in 2007, according to a new report released by the Justice Department. The caseloads are unlikely to decrease amid state budget shortfalls.
Legal blogger Matt Kelley writes:
Staffing cuts -- and therefore, caseload spikes -- have been hitting [public defender] offices hard during this difficult year for state budgets. Support staff is sometimes the first to go when budgets get tight, and the loss of these critical team members can be devastating for the quality of representation. The [Justice Department] study found that the 17,000 attorneys in 2007 were aided by 11,000 support staff - from secretaries to file clerks to investigators and paralegals. Prosecutors have investigators on their side -- they're called police -- so when public defenders lose their investigators, the scales become even more unbalanced.
This weekend, a Kentucky county learned that it must cut 30 percent of its budget for next year and an Indiana county announced that it was cutting several attorney and support staff positions. Prosecutors' offices are feeling the pinch, too, and a Michigan DA is thinking about suing his own county over deep cuts on the table.
[Image via Rick Waller.]
It is a sad state of affairs
It is a sad state of affairs when Justice is nonexistent. There is a wholesale denial in Florida of real and pervasive problems whereas courts defend their integrity with worthless diatribe.
The Offices of the Public Defender do not have the resources to fulfill their duties. Some assistant Public Defenders carry caseloads impossible to meet. People are pleading simply to get out of jail, not because they admit guilt, but because the excessive delays in the courts due to congestion. No more is the creed "innocent until proven guilty", it has been subverted into "guilty until proven innocence". People are actually held in jail until the expiration of the maximum sentence for their alleged infraction, before even having a hearing on the charge.
A defendant that complains that his Public defender stated that the workload prevents his providing even minimal constitutional assistance is thought delusional, but that is simply a self evident truth. And the substandard conflict attorney's, who operate simply to get some minimal flat fee too dispose of a case, how can that be equated to deliver justice?
For an appeals court to tell the Public Defender, that not accepting 3rd degree felonies except on a case by case basis is blatantly incredulous, for that adds a layer of overheard to his already crowded caseload.
The courts in Florida are simply insane or grossly in denial.
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