The 6th Amendment Center released a report last week that validates the need for indigent defense reform and a public defender’s office in Oakland County. The report evaluates the county’s traditional indigent defense system which has been in place for decades, where the courts oversaw the appointment and assignment of lawyers for defendants who could not afford one.
“The 6th Amendment Center’s report affirms the steps Oakland County is taking to make our criminal justice system more equitable, especially for indigent defendants,” Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter said. “As we launch a hybrid system for indigent defense that includes a public defender’s office, we are showing Oakland County’s commitment to ensuring fairness for all defendants in our courts.”
This report comes on the heels of the Oakland County Board of Commissioners approving the acceptance of $14.4 million in grant funding for indigent defense and appropriation of $1.9 million for the county’s local share. Beginning in 2023, the county will use a hybrid model consisting of a public defender’s office, staffed by Oakland County employees, and the current roster of independent contractor attorneys, for 6th Circuit Court and 52nd District Court indigent defense appointments. The other eight county district courts continue to utilize their own rosters of independent contractor attorneys to provide indigent defense services.
“We should not lose sight of the fact that we are now doing something that just a few years ago would have been considered impossible in Oakland County – the creation of an in-house public defender’s office,” said Pete Menna, chief attorney of Oakland County’s Indigent Defense Services Office. “Through this and other reforms, we are showing the state and our residents that we take our duty to provide effective legal representation seriously, and we will work tirelessly to improve our system as a whole, and its effects on indigent persons.”
The 6th Amendment Center’s findings in its report on indigent defense in Oakland County include:
• Low pay impairs indigent defense attorneys’ ability to provide effective representation. The historical practice in Oakland County has been to pay attorneys through an “event-based” payment system, which gives them a set case fee regardless of the amount of time spent on a case. Oakland County is voluntarily moving to an hourly pay for indigent defense attorneys in capital cases and studying how best to move all other cases to an hourly payment system soon.
• Attorney workloads are too high. Oakland County, like most of the state, does not limit the number of cases an individual attorney may take. Attorneys with caseloads that are too high have the potential to provide ineffective representation because they simply do not have adequate time to devote to each client. Oakland County’s plan to increase private attorney compensation, along with the creation of the Public Defender’s Office, will help to mitigate this concern.
• There is a need for greater staffing in Indigent defense in Oakland County which will help with the training and oversight of defense attorneys. Creating positions dedicated to attorney evaluation and support would allow the County to quickly identify attorneys who may need further training, and to tailor that training to meet the needs of the attorney.
The 6th Amendment Center’s report made two key recommendations for Oakland County’s justice system:
• First, the creation of a unified defense system covering every court in the County and utilizing a hybrid model like the county is implementing for the 6th Circuit and 52nd District courts. The other eight district courts use the traditional system of appointment of defense attorneys for defendants who cannot afford one. The Public Defender’s Office will not serve the other district courts at this time. It would require intervention by the Michigan Legislature or all Oakland County district courts voluntarily opting in to use the county’s hybrid model to create a unified defense system.
• Second, reconfiguring the structure of the county’s Indigent Defense Services Office into a hybrid system that utilizes legal representation provided by an in-house public defender’s office and contracted attorneys, which Oakland County is already committed to implementing in 2023.
For additional information on the Sizth Amendment Center, visit https://sixthamendment.org.
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