Public defender changes expensive

From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

The Nevada Supreme Court Indigent Defense Commission has completed a draft report that recommends major and potentially expensive fixes to public defender systems across the state.

“The way we, as a society, deal with the indigent in our court system is a benchmark of our commitment to justice,” Supreme Court Justice Michael Cherry, the head of the commission, wrote in the 76-page report.

To help ensure defendants get adequate representation, the commission has endorsed capping the number of cases assigned to public defenders and creating a set of performance rules for the attorneys.

After a final meeting later this year, the commission’s recommendations will go to the full Supreme Court for possible adoption.

The case limits are intended to bring public defender systems statewide in compliance with American Bar Association guidelines. Currently, most public defenders in the state have caseloads that far exceed those standards, which reduces the amount of time the lawyers can spend on any given case.

A vast majority of defendants in criminal proceedings are declared indigent, and the commission has also discussed improving the system for determining whether a defendant can afford an attorney.

The panel has proposed limiting public defenders to a maximum of 192 felony cases per year. Caps would also be put on capital, juvenile delinquency, misdemeanor, and other types of cases.

Attorneys with Clark County Public Defender Phil Kohn’s office currently have felony caseloads nearing 400.

Public defenders in Nevada’s rural counties and Clark County’s part-time conflict defenders also are coping with growing caseloads

Kohn said his agency’s felony caseload is increasing by 200 cases per month, in large part because of an increase in city police officers made possible by a county sales tax increase in 2005.

In a letter to Cherry, representatives from the national headquarters of the NAACP and ACLU strongly urged the state to adopt “realistic caseload limits.”

The commission estimates it could cost Clark County and the entire rest of the state each about $15 million to meet those standards. Most of the expense here would stem from the need for more attorneys in Kohn’s office.

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