Editorial Boards Join Call For Creating Independent Public Defense Commission

ALBANY, NY (05/20/2008)(readMedia)-- Editorial boards around the state have been joining the call for Governor Paterson and state legislators to support creation of an Independent Public Defense Commission (IPDC) to begin the takeover of the state’s underfunded, poor-performing county-based system of providing lawyers for defendants unable to afford private counsel.

“New York has a constitutional obligation to provide defense attorneys for poor people accused of crimes, but the state simply isn't meeting it,” wrote Long Island-based Newsday. “That's an outrageous state of affairs that Albany shouldn't allow to continue. “

Newsday took note that public defense services – which the state mandates, but does not pay for – is a mammoth unfunded mandate that state reports show collectively cost counties more than a quarter billion dollars a year, including more than $20 million in Long Island’s two counties alone.

“That's an underfunded mandate that property taxpayers shouldn't have to bear,” Newsday wrote. “Legislation initiated in the Assembly would create an independent public defender commission to dissect the system's inadequacies. It would report to the legislature what it would take to ensure an adequate, independent legal defense, what it would cost and how to get there from here. It's a journey that officials need to take.”

The Albany Times Union also cited the unfunded mandate, noting that the “patchwork” of county systems vary so widely in their effectiveness that a defendant’s ability to exercise a presumably constitutionally-guaranteed right to effective counsel “is more like a roll of the dice in New York, where much depends on where you will be tried.”

“The state provides a share of the funds for these programs, but only if the counties meet the state standards for quality,” the Times Union wrote, in a reference to a state fund designed to augment the county expenditures created after hourly rates for court-appointed defense attorneys rose several years ago. “If they fail, the state will punish them by denying the aid, which creates a Catch 22: the very programs that are failing are denied the funds needed to improve their services."

The Times Union called on the Governor and Legislature to enact an Assembly proposal (A-9806-B Part Y), which would create the IPDC along with legislation that would assist several counties that were “zeroed out” from receiving any additional state moneys from the state fund because of a failure to meet Maintenance of Effort provisions in the law.

“That would serve the best interest of counties, while ensuring a uniform standard of legal representation through New York,” the Times Union wrote. “And it would serve the principle of justice for all."

The Press Republican of Plattsburgh noted that the proposed legislation builds on a report to Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye by the Commission on the Future of Indigent Defense Services that called the current county-based provision of public defense services “a fractured, inefficient and broken system.”

“Until a court rules, we don’t know whether the accused are lawbreakers, and that insistence on justice should be at or near the top of the requisites for a civilized society,” the Press Republican wrote. “The strong suspicion is that many indigents are being allowed or even urged to plead guilty to crimes they never committed just to move their cases along. Only broad oversight can correct this misappropriation of justice.”

The paper went on to urge support for the bills currently under discussion to create the IPDC.

“Bills in the Assembly and Senate would for the first time provide justice for the disenfranchised,” the Press Republican editorialized. “New York cannot call itself a compassionate state if it continues to allow its most vulnerable citizens to be treated with utter absence of compassion.”

The Kaye Commission report made recommendations, including for the creation of an IPDC and for changes that would bring New York into compliance with national standards, such as the American Bar Association’s Ten Principles for a Public Defense Delivery System. Those principles call for an independent system of public defense, with reasonable caseload limits, a guarantee of client confidentiality, a parity of resources between prosecution and defense, and accountability. A bill to create such a commission, along with reversing actions by the state denying several counties any additional financial support from a special state fund, is currently under discussion among legislators and Governor Paterson.

The Kaye Commission recommendations have been endorsed by legal, civil rights, religious and community groups across the state, as well as former presidents of the New York State Bar Association dating back to 1959. The State Bar and the Legislature’s Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Caucus have made passage of legislation creating an IPDC a priority.

-30-

Posted Tuesday May 20, 2008 at 09:30 am by Campaign for an Independent Public Defense Commission