The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
County ends contract with Madison Legal Defense Bureau
WAMPSVILLE, N. Y. » Via a letter sent Oct. 13, 2020, the Madison Board of Supervisors informed the Madison Legal Defense Bureau, which oversees the Madison Public Defenders office, that the county would not be renewing their contract in 2021. One public defender thinks this is an unwise decision that will cost the county in taxpayer dollars.
The vote was unanimous among the board. According to a Madison County representative, resolution No. 20- 427, adopted on Oct. 13, states that Madison
County “no longer wishes to utilize the current provider of services and wishes to go in a different direction” and created the positions for an Assigned Counsel Program, which the county plans to utilize in lieu of public defenders. The county is also working toward a shared ser
vices agreement with Onondaga County.
Former director and current part- time lawyer of the Madison Public Defenders, Paulhadley, shared a letter with the board in response to the news of his office being terminated.
He criticized the board for not having previously communicated with any public defender staff regarding this decision. “The termination of the contract by Madison County was shocking and devastating to twelve people who are losing their jobs,” he remarked. He says a criminal justice committee also signed off this decision, but he’s not sure why.
Hadley dubbed the county’s decision “the Becker Plan,” after Madison County Chairman of the Board John Becker.
Defendants have a constitutional right to representation in criminal proceedings. The county currently provides this representation through a combination of the Madison Public Defenders and assigned counsel. Assigned counsel is utilized when there’s conflict of interest or co- defendants in a case.
Public defenders are government employees who specialize in criminal defense, representing residents in criminal court who are otherwise unable to obtain an attorney. The county organization is currently comprised of three full- time attorneys, five part- time, according to Hadley.
Assigned counsel attorneys perform the same task as public defenders, however, they are independent contractors and can come from any legal field, not necessarily criminal defense. Additionally, they bill the county for their work. This may include travel expenses and other costs. The public defenders negotiates a budget every year with madison County.
“There is no experience requirement to be on the assigned counsel list. The lawyer merely has to be licensed to practice in NYS,” Hadley emphasized, arguing that assigned counsel attorneys are less qualified.
A Madison County representative shared that the county takes their legal obligation to represent defendants “very seriously,” and “the Madison County Board of Supervisors has decided to honor that obligation in a different manner.” According to hadley’s reports, the county created two positions, parttime director and administrative assistant, to run the Assigned Counsel Program when the public defenders is disbanded.
Besides assigned counsel’s discrepancy in experience, Hadley says they are notoriously unpredictable, inefficient, and more costly.
Public defenders are located within the county office building, and its attorneys are at the ready to cover a case. Assigned counsel attorneys, however, often work their own practice during business hours, and can come from multiple locations, even hours away, Hadley stated.
“When NYS issued a [ legal- defense] mandate [ for arraignments], we responded immediately with a plan to appear with criminal defendants at all arraignments at every court in Madison County on a 24 hours basis, 365 days a year. We had lawyers on standby during all hours of the day and night ready to appear at arraignments, whenever they occurred,” Hadley explained.
Often the assigned counsel program fails to assign defense attorneys in a timely manner to defendants being held on bail, he says, and they don’t always appear for local courts in a timely manner either. This results in “frustration at the local court level and poor functioning of the criminal justice system,” according to Hadley.
“I think madison County is going to be prone to some sort of civil claims,” Hadley warned of switching to assigned counsel.
In the early 1990s, at the request of the Madison County Bar Association, attorney James Roman headed a committee to establish a Public Defenders Office and replace the existing Assigned Counsel Program, according to Hadley. This committee met with Madison County officials including the chair of the Criminal Justice Committee and chair of the Board of Supervisors. Many of the reasons Hadley spelled out in his letter, including quality, timeliness, and cost, were reasons the county chose to leave the Assigned Counsel Program nearly 30 years ago.
The committee and Madison County officials ended up agreeing to the concept of a Public Defender’s Office. In 1991, instead of creating a new county department, the county established a non- profit corporation, called “Madison Legal Defense Bureau,” responsible for overseeing the Public Defender’s Office, and this is how it’s run today.
Using calculated percase costs based on annual UCS- 195 forms that both the Public Defender’s Office and the County Assigned Counsel Program submit to the NYS Office of Court Administration and NYS Indigent Legal Services ( ILS) in recent years, Hadley reported the estimated costs to the county if all public defender cases were handled by the Assigned Counsel Program.
In 2016, the “Becker Plan” would have cost the county and taxpayers an additional $ 4.4 million, in 2018, an additional $ 6.7 million, and in 2019, an additional $ 800,000, according to Hadley’s calculations.
If the board thinks switching to this plan will save the county money, it won’t, Hadley remarked. With more than 1,500 new cases expected in 2021, Hadley predicts the costs of the Assigned Counsel Program for that year will likely exceed $ 2 million.
“I wrote grant proposals and obtained millions of dollars from NYS. And I obtained over half a million dollars in competitive grants,” Hadley said of his time as part of the Madison Public Defenders, helping offset expenses and hire new lawyers. The county states it will still have the same access to grant money from New York State Indigent Legal Services for the Assigned Counsel Program.
Current Madison Public Defenders Director Chris Thorpe stated, “I’m deeply saddened and disappointed with the county’s decision. For 20 years, and my time as a director in the last year and a third, we’ve done some fantastic and phenomenal things. Our office, [ including] the attorneys and the staff, has taken care of difficult situations professionally and credibly and has taken care of and defended people who would otherwise have nobody else to turn to. We’ve done so very effectively over the years.”
He concluded, “While I’m saddened for my staff, I’m disappointed for the people that we serve. I have no doubt that we’ll find a way to serve the people of Madison County and the clients that we’ve served over the years, it just will have to end up being in a different format.”
Hadley asks that the county consider the myriad of cases public defenders see to that aren’t part of regular statistics. “For example, two attorneys are now assigned to our successful drug court program, and two attorneys are normally assigned to felony trials. Public defenders appear at SORA hearings that determine the risk level of sex offenders, at parole revocation hearings, and at violation of Conditional Discharge hearings when defendants fail to pay restitution or fines, complete community service requirements, or meet other requirements of dispositional orders. With the implementation of an Assigned Counsel Program, attorneys will be appointed in most of those situations at an unforeseen cost to the county,” he stated.
Additionally, Hadley says to consider the fact that the Public Defender’s Office currently has approximately 1,000 open cases, an increase due to courts closing due to COVID- 19. He also anticipates an inf lux of new attorney assignments for 2021, as only two of the eight present public defenders have expressed a willingness to continue in 2021.
The current f low of court proceedings with public defender attorneys will be disrupted for the worse when it’s just assigned counsel attorneys taking cases, Hadley says. “[ They] will be arriving at varying times, having to interview their client and wait in line to speak to an assistant district attorney. All these requirements will serve to delay the Court in processing the cases on its calendar,” he says.
And as the Assigned Counsel Program transitions to Onondaga County taking over assigning attorneys, that will cost the county as well, he says. “They’ll have to pay Onondaga County to administrate the plan.”
Hadley concluded, “For the sake of the county taxpayer, the criminal defendant dependent on the skills of his attorney, and the twelve professionals about to lose their jobs, I urge the county to reconsider its decision.”
The next Madison County Board of Supervisors meetings are on Nov. 12, 2020, at 10 a. m. and Dec. 3, 2020, at 2 p. m. The public can request to attend the meetings via Zoom by first calling the board of supervisors office at ( 315) 366- 2201 or emailing emily. burns@ madisoncounty. ny. gov.