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PD News Roundup

by ambimb

  • In Miami-Dade County, Florida, Carlos J. Martinez will be sworn in as the county’s new top Public Defender today.He’ll be the first  Cuban-American to hold that office.
  • Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, Chief Public Defender Charles T. Jones, Jr., is a candidate for county judge. (At $160k/year, I’m betting the judge position pays better than the PD gig.)
  • The wife of a Mendocino County, California, public defender was arrested in Utah Saturday with 162 pounds of marijuana in the back of her pickup. As a Utah State Trooper observed, “It’s a lot of marijuana.” The public defender, Bert Schlosser, ran unsuccessfully for District Attorney in 2007. (Maybe that’s what he gets for trying to switch sides. On the plus side, the given reason for the stop looks pretty thin. Since when is crossing the fog line reasonable suspicion?)
  • A Georgia legislator has proposed a bill to move control of the state’s public defender system from the Public Defender Standards Council to the Director of the system. (Can anyone out there in the trenches comment? Would this be a good or bad thing for indigent defense in GA?)
  • San Francisco public defenders are opposing a plan to create “drug-free zones” in which cops with only a “reasonable belief” that two or more people are congregating to use or deal drugs would be authorized to order those people to disperse or be arrested. (What would such people be charged with? Failure to disperse in a drug-free zone?)
  • New Jacksonville, Florida, public defender, Matt Shirk, continues to create controversy by continuing to fire public defenders. Shirk is the guy who promised during his campaign “not to oppose funding cuts to the office he was running for, and a
    promise to squeeze as much money as possible out of indigent
    defendants, including a proposal for the postponed billing of acquitted
    defendants who might later be able to find some employment.” He’s also been accused of promising the Fraternal Order of Police that his office would not raise questions about the integrity of policemen. As Mark Bennett noted, ” I hope we see bar grievances, disbarment, and disgrace in Mr. Shirk’s future.” More interesting thoughts on Shirk here.

What else? Comments always welcome…

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2 comments

1 Jen { 01.28.09 at 8:48 pm }

“Would this be a good or bad thing for indigent defense in GA?”

My initial inclination is that this is a bad idea because Mack Crawford, director of GPDSC, is not a true believer by any stretch of the imagination.. but, this may not be such a bad idea. Crawford’s a politician and a Republican, so it might be easier to get things accomplished if him and the standards council weren’t butting heads all the time.

2 Donzell { 01.28.09 at 8:55 pm }

I share Jen’s reservation about the bill scrapping the council and placing the authority in the hands of the director. However, Crawford is a better politician that the rest of the council. Yet, I think there is going to be a flurry of litigation over the state of GPDSC, if this bill passes.

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