With legislators struggling to cut state spending by more than $1 billion, the odds of the state Department of Public Advocacy receiving more money are not promising.
However, Ed Monahan, the director of the department that oversees public defenders, certainly made a convincing argument for the need for additional funding during an appearance Tuesday before a House budget subcommittee. At the very least, Monahan said, his department cannot withstand the additional cuts called for in Gov. Steve Beshear’s proposed budget. The budget includes more than $750 million in revenue from slot machines at race tracks, and idea that legislators have nixed.
While public defenders may be meeting the minimum requirements by providing their indigent clients with legal representation, no one pretends that the public defenders have the time to adequately represent their clients. Many public defenders do not even meet their clients until just moments before their court appearance.
“Our caseload (per attorney) is now 450 and that’s still more than any lawyer can competently handle,” Monahan told the subcommittee. “Sometimes there’s not enough time to even talk to the client.”
DPA handles 147,000 cases on a budget this year of $44.7 million, spending roughly $208 on each trial, said Monahan, adding that he doubted any of the attorneys on the committee would be willing to try a case for that amount. Yet, Gov. Steve Beshear’s proposed budget recommends less in each of the two coming years for DPA, $44.3 million in FY 2011 and $43.9 in FY 2012.
With legislators having to cut the proposed revenue from slots at race tracks from the governor’s proposed budget, the chances of the DPA getting even less increase.
Providing adequate legal counsel for indigents charged with crimes has never been a high priority item for legislators, and for a legislator to advocate more money for public defenders is not likely to win that senator or representative many votes and may even cost him or her a few votes. Yet, Monahan is right when he says the right to competent counsel for defendants was crucial to an effective criminal justice system. Even those poor clients who are guilty as charged — as many are — need an attorney to help assure that the punishment they receive is fair.
Monahan also said a pilot program of social workers in two DPA offices has been so successful that it should be expanded, instead of eliminated. The social workers arrange alternative sentencing for non-violent offenders with drug and mental health problems and their work in the two counties has saved the state the cost of incarceration, now an average of $19,000 a year for each inmate. Just as important, the recidivism rate for those who receive treatment instead of jail time is half of that for those sent to jail, Monahan said.
At the very least, a public defender should be able to pick his or her clients out of a line-up, but with more than 450 clients at a time, many can’t even do that. There are many skilled, dedicated public defenders in Kentucky who labor long hours for little pay, but the immensity of their case load makes it impossible for them to do their jobs. Until that changes, an important part of the criminal justice system will remain broken.
Editorials
Overburdened — 02/06/10
Kentucky cannot afford fewer funds for public defenders
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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