Advocates say state should pick up public defender tab

From the Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY):

The state, instead of counties, should pay for public defenders to make sure poor people accused of crimes get adequate legal representation, a group of defense lawyers said Thursday.

The National Legal Aid & Defender Association and New York State Defenders Association released a report chronicling the “state of crisis” in the state’s public defense system, and called for the state to pay for the system, rather than counties. That would add about $260 million to the state budget.

“The right to counsel is illusory in upstate New York,” said David Carroll, the association’s director of research.

Carroll used Franklin County, a rural area with a population of about 51,000 that borders Canada, as an example of the problem. He said five public defenders there are doing the work of 12 under national-caseload standards.

A public defender should handle no more than 150 felonies a year, under standards set by the American Bar Association. The primary Franklin County public defender already handled 110 felonies and 156 misdemeanors in the first six months of this year, Carroll said.

The high number of cases with few public defenders creates a judicial backlog that imposes even more costs to taxpayers while jailing the defendants, Carroll said.  This is not justice for all. This is triage justice,” Carroll said.

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