West Virginia compensates lawyers who represent poor people accused of crimes. To control such costs, the state has pushed the counties to set up offices of full-time public defenders.
Wood County remains the largest county without such an office, continuing instead to rely on court-appointed lawyers who then bill for their services.
But as The Charleston Gazette reports, this route for providing citizens with their constitutional right to counsel is producing an additional drain.
Private investigators become a key resource for defense lawyers, helping them research and present a case. They, too, are compensated and are costing the state's Public Defender Services agency about $500,000 a year, the Gazette reports.
Wood County "stands out like a sore thumb" for such costs, one legislator is quoted as saying at the ongoing interim meetings.
10 December 2007
Defending the Poor in W.Va.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
This problem is but a symptom of the larger one--- less government regulation and taxation leads to better jobs which leads to more income which leads to more people being able to hire their own attorneys.
Also, the rates paid by the government per hour for appointed (non-public defender) criminal defense work are basically nothing. Most times the rate is barely enough to pay your office overhead. So, the folks taking appointed cases in wood county and elsewhere are doing so mostly for charity, unless they work out of their home or have other unique office arrangements, or are taking the work as filler at times they otherwise would not be working.
Post a Comment