Mar 31, 2006 - 02:07:01 CST
The hiring of seven attorneys to work full-time providing defense counsel to those who can't afford to pay shows that North Dakota has made needed progress.There are other lawyers doing indigent defense in the state, but the seven are the only ones doing it all the time. The others are under contract to take cases in their localities. The seven full-timers will concentrate on western North Dakota.
Some readers may wonder how this amounts to progress and why it's necessary in the first place for the state treasury to pay for any of the lawyers.
Taking the latter matter first: It's a constitutional requirement. Both the North Dakota and United States constitutions assert the right of everyone accused of a crime to have the representation of legal counsel. That goes whether the accused can pay or not. We pick up the cost for those who don't have the money.
The cost to the public treasury of preserving that sacred right is worthwhile.
The recent hiring of the attorneys in North Dakota was done under a new system created by the Legislature in 2005.
The new system is working as well as it can.
Prior to the 2005 session, it was the state Supreme Court that contracted individual attorneys for all public defense work.
That wasn't the best method. A case could come on appeal to the same Supreme Court that hired the lawyer who provided the defense in the trial court.
Since 2005, an independent Commission on Legal Counsel for Indigents does the contracting or hiring. The governor appoints its seven members. The Legislature made an appropriation to the commission for 2005-07 of $10.1 million, and of that, $9.2 million must be used for contracting legal service and, as now, hiring staff to provide indigent defense. It's a $4.1 million increase from the previous biennium.
It pays for more than 10,000 case assignments a year. It's a staggering caseload.
Our state's public defender system, like every other state's, is not ideal.
The Tribune has pointed out in the past that people who can afford to pay for their own defense attorneys get more bang for their buck - they get the services offered by whole law firms rather than a lone public defender; there are more resources to pay for investigators and to import expert witnesses.
The state's indigent defense system can afford only three investigators to work the entire state.
But we're trying to do what's right with what the state can afford to pay.
People who cherish justice will support a system that does what it can to allow "the accused to enjoy ... (having) the Assistance of Counsel for his defence," in the words of the Sixth Amendment.
Dan wrote on Mar 31, 2006 9:26 AM:
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