Public defender DeWolfe to retire this summer
Maryland public defender PaulDeWolfewillretirethis summer after more than 12 years at the helm of the state agency charged with providing legal representation to those accused of crimes who can’t afford private attorneys.
DeWolfe’s tenure as public defender has seen his administration overhaul the office, persistently battle to maintain staffing to keep up with an ever-increasing caseload and push for criminal justice reform.
He said he was proud that his administration has built a strong leadership structure, bolstered the office’s ranks of social workers and created litigation support divisions to assist trial attorneys.
But at 74, and after his second six-year term expires June 30, it’s time for him to retire rather than apply to keep his post, DeWolfe told The Baltimore Sun. He looks forward to traveling and spending time with grandchildren.
“As a person that’s spent his career in courts and the justice system, there’s so many things that need to be reformed,” DeWolfe said in a phone interview, naming sentencing, pretrial and racial justice reform as priorities.
“I’d love to see some of these reforms come about.
I hope that as I leave the agency I’ve left a really strong team in place for whoever takes over next.”
The Office of the Public Defender is overseen by a Board of Trustees, which appoints the state’s top public defender. Thirteen practicing lawyers, who serve for three years each, make up the board.
The governor appoints 11 members of the board with state Senate advice and consent. Maryland’s House of Delegates speaker and Senate president each appoint a member of the board.
The board has advertised that it’s seeking DeWolfe’s successor; applications are due March 1.
T. Wray McCurdy, the chairman of the board, couldn’t say whether anyone has applied yet. But he expected a deluge of applications, as he believes DeWolfe made being public defender a more desirable position.
“He’s turned the public defender’s office from a group of distinct entities, county by county, and transformed them into a large law firm,” McCurdy said. He added that the public defender’s office plays a more central role in the criminal justice system than when DeWolfe started. “Paul DeWolfe has put the public defender at the table with various state’s attorney’s offices, with the judges, as equal partners,”McCurdy said.
Marci Johnson is the president of the Maryland Defenders Union, the organization created when the public defenders decided to unionize and is part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. She criticized the Board of Trustees for what she described as a lack of transparency and inclusion in the process for finding a successor to DeWolfe, who has opposed their organization efforts.
Hired as Maryland’s chief public defender in 2009 by a then-three-member board of trustees, DeWolfe replaced a predecessor fired after refusing enact cutbacks and change during the Great Recession. He inherited an office with a growing caseload, shrinking budget and facing a lawsuit seeking to ensure defendants were represented at initial bail hearings in front of court commissioners.
DeWolfe agreed defendants needed to be represented at their first appearance and advocated for his office to get more attorneys to fill that role. However, the legislature chose to give funding to the judiciary, which set up a program to pay private attorneys to represent defendants at first appearances.
“It was a win in that the right to counsel was affirmed,” DeWolfe said. “But there are still too many people held without bail and reform needs to move forward.”
Doug Colbert, a University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law professor, helped bring the lawsuit that led to the Court of Appeals ruling that found defendants are entitled to legal representation at initial bail hearings. He credited DeWolfe for recognizing and supporting the merits of the case but said the public defender wasn’t a strong enough advocate.
“Many times, I felt like Paul wanted to do more, but he often would measure his words when he testified in Annapolis,” Colbert said. “It’s understandable; it’s a very challenging job. Paul was limited by the different constituencies who are responsible for funding, who are responsible for hiring more lawyers.”
Johnson, who wrote about DeWolfe’s retirement in an opinion piece last month on the Maryland Matters website, said in an interview she wished him well, but the public defenders union will look for more support from his successor.
“We are hoping for a new public defender who will not only be supportive of our union but will advocate strongly not only for the needs of our clients, but for the people who work in the public defender’s office,” Johnson said. “We’re looking for someone to have a commitment to what’s supposed to be our mission for justice, fairness and dignity for all, including the workers in the public defender’s office.”
DeWolfe said the office under his leadership pushed to change a cash bail system, prevented defendants from being sentenced to death years before capital punishment was abolished in Maryland and argued for the release of people who were sent to prison before they turned 18 after they served 20 years.
“Building on that model, we’d love to see sentencing reform so that people who have served a certain amount of time in prison or are of a certain age could get a second look to possibly be released,” DeWolfe said.
Before taking on the statewide role, DeWolfe was the top public defender in Montgomery County. In that role, he represented sniper John Allen Muhammad, who carried out a series of killings over three weeks in 2002 in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., before Muhammad chose to defend himself in court.
Douglas Gansler, a former Democratic state attorney general who’s running for governor, was the Montgomery County state’s attorney whose office prosecuted Muhammad. He said DeWolfe maintained credibility with judges and prosecutors by not losing sight of the facts of the cases while advocating strongly for his clients. That approach translated well to his role at the statewide level, Gansler said.
“He has a very soft voice, but he speaks very loudly on behalf of the people who need it most in the Maryland criminal justice system,” Gansler said.