Category — Minnesota

From the Alexandria Echo Press (MN):

Minnesota law clearly guarantees parents in child protection cases the right to an attorney.

The issue becomes muddied, however, when trying to sort out whose job it is to provide that service.

Now, as it faces a $3.8 million shortfall due to state budget cuts, the Minnesota Board of Public Defense says it can no longer afford to provide any “non-mandated services,” including representing parents.

On Tuesday, the state board discontinued its role in child protection cases, passing the costs onto Minnesota counties at a time when they say they’re already stretched thin.

The timing couldn’t be worse, said Douglas County Auditor/Treasurer Tom Reddick, with the state also limiting how much counties can raise property taxes over the next few years.

“That’s the really sinful part of this thing,” he said. “If [the cost of representing parents] falls under the levy limit [of 3.9 percent] – if you squeeze the balloon over here, then it pops over there.”

Covering parents’ legal fees for the remainder of the year could cost the county as much as $55,000, and three times as much should the county have to pick up the tab in 2009, said Rhonda Bot, 7th District court administrator for Douglas and Morrison counties.

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From the Park Rapids Enterprise:

Justice delayed is justice denied.

That prognostication has become both a cliché and a rallying call for legal reformers. But it’s about to become a burden on indigent Minnesotans and cash-strapped counties.

On June 5 massive cuts were enacted to the state public defenders budget to address deficits and budget shortfalls. The equivalent of 72 of 441 positions was cut from public defenders’ offices and appellate lawyers statewide, a 15 percent reduction in staff.

Minnesota public defenders, according to state compiled statistics, represent 85 percent of all persons charged with felonies and half of the persons accused of misdemeanors.

“I would think that we’re higher up here in PD representation than those numbers simply because the metro areas have a larger pool of private attorneys from the criminal defense bar,” said Kris Kolar, Chief Public Defender for the 9th Judicial District. She added that Hubbard County may be more economically distressed, so that would be a factor, too.

The State Board of Public Defense also voted to stop representing indigent parents in custody fights and in terminations of parental rights (TPR) cases. The former are typically referred to as CHIPS cases, for Children in Need of Help or Protection.

The Board said it faced a $3.8 million deficit after legislators cut $1.5 million from its budget this past session.

It means that overworked public defenders will shoulder even heavier caseloads, poor defendants will wait longer to go to trial and to appeal their cases, court administrators will wait longer to collect fines and fees and the judicial system will feel the strain.

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An update from our friend Accident Prone, in the midst of the Minnesota pd budget crisis:

I am safe. Well, at least my job is.

After considerable cutbacks to the Minnesota State PD Budget, they only have to cut 23 public defenders statewide. However, we are losing about 53 full time PD’s total thanks to other options (voluntary 1-year leave, early retirement, etc.). Our office in Hennepin County is already 14.5 full-time positions in the hole, so we were spared. Caseload and arraignment relief is nowhere in sight. We had to cut all contracts for our conflicts cases (so God only knows what we will do with those).

It’s going to be a hard summer across the state. It will be even more difficult because of the increase in charged crimes in the summer months.

From TwinCities.com:

The bastard child of American jurisprudence is taking another rap to the knuckles. Life is unfair. So what else is new?

We’re talking here about public defenders for indigent criminal defendants. They are an overworked, underpaid, misunderstood and much-maligned lot. Could be those two words — indigent and criminal — that put most of us off. It’s human nature.

Yet without these attorneys, the lofty ideal of “justice for all” — or constitutionally mandated due process for the have-nots as well as the haves — is pretty much a farce. It was announced last week that 72 state-funded public defender positions would be eliminated in Minnesota because the state’s public defender system faces a $3.8 million deficit following legislative budget cuts.

The job cuts made some news buzz. Then we collectively turned to more interesting and most-read serious news tidbits, like actress Tori (Tori who?) Spelling giving birth to a second child and naming the kid Stella.

Stella, Stella. Ever heard the name Gideon, a name that changed the legal landscape in this nation more than four decades ago? The anticipated cuts come on the 45th anniversary of the landmark 1963 Supreme Court decision ruling that everyone in America — both the haves but notably the have-nots — have the right to have a lawyer defend them in a criminal case. Of course, the decision in Gideon v. Wainwright made no mention at all about how this concept would be funded.

…

That will also affect the willingness or the memory of witnesses or victims to a crime, particularly in cases where DNA or scientific evidence is nonexistent.

Indeed, the decision in Gideon v. Wainwright has proven to be mostly a toothless tiger, given cultural attitudes.

Public defenders continue to lobby for funding scraps year in and year out while funding for prosecutors and the judiciary remains relatively constant and generally rides the ebb and flow of state budget revenue streams.

That disparity is also much reinforced by TV and Hollywood depictions that prosecutors are good and defense lawyers are conniving shysters willing to do anything to get their client off.

Of course, reality puts quite a damper on such thoughts.

…

Ramsey County Chief Public Defender Jim Hankes told me in 2004, in the midst of another round of proposed cuts, that this state of funding affairs is far more normal than the exception.

“Though the (state) Legislature has been generous in recent years, things really don’t change,” said Hankes, who will have to make do with a 25 percent manpower reduction in his 48-member staff by the end of the summer. Right now, each attorney in his office handles about 700 criminal misdemeanor and felony cases annually. The cuts will likely drive up that caseload to more than 800. Public defenders represent most defendants in Minnesota, including 85 percent of those accused of felonies and half of those accused of misdemeanors.

“There are favorite children, but we are not one of them,” Hankes said of who gets the bulk of the funding in this legal triumvirate.

It will change when the American public realizes that those accused of crimes are not “those people,” but more often their neighbors or relatives.

For now, assembly-line justice in the nation that is the undisputed world leader in incarceration of its own people is the accepted norm.

This is not solely a Minnesota problem. In fact, this state enjoys a national reputation for having one of the best, if imperfect, public defense systems in the nation.

Chicago and New York are drowning in public-defense woes. Miami’s public defenders recently decided to deal exclusively with death penalty cases because they don’t have the funds to deal with less-serious cases. You will find similar woes in most areas.

So, who cares? We all should, because it will cost us dollars in cases delayed, and ultimately wrongful-conviction lawsuits.

In the end, it’s the fairness and confidence in the system that should be paramount. It’s what used to make us unique. We lose this, we lose our standing, if not our idealistic soul and compass.

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From KSTP.com:

Those accused of crimes in Minnesota will likely face longer waits for their day in court and parents trying to hang onto their children will stop getting free legal representation after the state Board of Public Defense voted Thursday to cut more than 15 percent of its lawyers.

That translates into the equivalent of 72 full-time positions, of which 53 are currently filled positions. The board said in a release that it faces a $3.8 million deficit after the Legislature cut $1.5 million from its budget to address a state shortfall.

Public defenders represent the majority of defendants in Minnesota, including 85 percent of those accused of felonies and half of those accused of misdemeanors. The average public defender handles 714 cases a year, a number expected to top 800 after the job cuts take effect next month.

“Our clients are going to notice it the most,” said Bill Ward, chief public defender in the 10th judicial district on the northern edge of the Twin Cities. “There is going to be delay.”

Ward said the staff cuts will ripple through the court system, forcing more delays in trials and making local jurisdictions wait longer to collect fines, fees and assessments.

Of the 72 cuts, 19 are vacant jobs that won’t be filled, about 30 will be eliminated through early retirements and other voluntary departures and the equivalent of 23 or 24 full-time attorneys will face layoffs, Ward said.

The board will stop representing parents in child protection and parental rights termination cases because public defenders are not required to provide those services.

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