Latest news with #MaineCommissiononPublicDefenseServices'
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Maine's public defense system gets $3.5M boost, without governor's support
Apr. 23—An emergency law allocating $3.5 million to address Maine's public defense crisis took effect Wednesday without the governor's signature. Maine is struggling to provide legal representation to everyone who has a constitutional right to a court-appointed lawyer if they can't afford one on their own. The situation had grown so dire that a judge in Kennebec County recently ordered that people who have waited longer than two weeks for a lawyer start to be released from jail. In an effort to address the issue, and quickly, state lawmakers passed the emergency spending bill this month, allowing Maine's public defense agency to hire eight new employees, including five public defenders who will help take on more clients whom the state has struggled to represent. The bill also allows judges to pay private lawyers whom they appoint through February 2026, even if they haven't met all of the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services' training and eligibility requirements. These nonrostered attorneys must still have three years of related legal experience, and judges can't appoint anyone who has been suspended by the commission previously. A spokesperson for Gov. Janet Mills' office said she was "disappointed" that the bill did not also require the commission to make bigger changes to its eligibility rules, which she has argued are scaring away qualified attorneys. Rather than veto the bill, she allowed it to become law after 10 days without her signature. "As Governor Mills has said, the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services must make substantive changes to welcome more attorneys before its appropriation is increased yet again," spokesperson Ben Goodman said in an email Wednesday. "The governor was disappointed that LD 1101 did not require these reforms as a condition of additional funding, but she remains willing to work with the Legislature on further initiatives to address Maine's public defense crisis." Barbara Cardone, a spokesperson for the judicial branch, said the court system is preparing to implement the new law by creating a process to track when nonrostered attorneys are appointed to cases. She said the Maine Supreme Judicial Court plans to appoint some of these attorneys to child protective appeals, but couldn't speak to what lower-level judges plan to do. A NEW PLAN Mills previously requested several amendments to the emergency spending bill in March that are not included in the law — including changes to the commission's eligibility requirements and removing union protections for newly hired defenders. A lawmaker said in April that the Judiciary Committee plans to consider her requests in other bills. The commission has disputed that its standards are to blame for the lack of attorneys, arguing that lawyers are more dissuaded by unmanageable caseloads and that there are thousands more cases pending in Maine courts than six years ago, according to data from the judicial branch. Still, commission members plan to discuss their eligibility requirements and the emergency law at their next meeting on April 29, the agency's executive director, Jim Billings, said in an email Wednesday. The commission has begun implementing changes under a new plan it was required to file with Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy after she found the agency liable for violating these defendants' constitutional rights to counsel. The plan includes reassigning some administrative staff to focus on tracking and finding counsel for unrepresented cases. They will have to pause certain trainings and scale back on how closely they examine vouchers submitted by attorneys who are seeking reimbursement for public defense work. The new plan also suggested offering new incentives for private attorneys to join the commission's rosters, and emergency discussions on altering "perceived barriers" to the application process. DEPLOYING MORE DEFENDERS Commissioners and the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, which sued the commission more than two years ago, both say a robust system of public defenders is the state's best solution. Maine now has more than two dozen public defenders working throughout the state, the first of whom were hired in late 2022. Maine was the last state to hire public defenders, after previously relying exclusively on private attorneys who are reimbursed by the state. As new public defenders have begun taking on more cases, the number of people statewide who need lawyers has dropped in recent months. As of Wednesday, the state needed lawyers for about 400 criminal cases, according to the commission's executive director. The commission also needs more than 150 lawyers for parents who could lose custody of their children due to alleged abuse or neglect. The commission is waiting on Maine's Bureau of Human Resources to approve most of their job postings before they can start hiring the new emergency public defenders, Billings, the executive director, said Wednesday. The bill pays for five new positions, including five public defenders, two paralegals and an office assistant. The commission's more substantive requests for new staff and funding face a much steeper, uphill battle from lawmakers and the governor, who said in January that she will not propose any new funding for the agency until it relaxes its eligibility requirements. Murphy, who is overseeing the lawsuit by the ACLU, is still deciding if the state supreme court should weigh in on the state's appeal over her order to start releasing defendants who don't have attorneys. Copy the Story Link
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Gov. Mills doubles down on urging Maine's public defense agency to relax rules
Jan. 29—Gov. Janet Mills made history in 2022 when she signed a bill authorizing the state to hire its first set of public defenders. Mills said in a speech Tuesday that she has helped quadruple the state's public defense budget from $11 million to $44 million (now $51 million per year in the proposed biennial budget) and approved dozens of public defense positions across a state that previously relied exclusively on the private bar. Yet in the last couple of years, Maine has struggled to find enough lawyers to represent people who cannot afford their own — a bedrock principle of the Constitution. Between 2022 and 2023, Mills said the number of unrepresented criminal defendants "skyrocketed" by more than 655%. Some have said the real issue is that the number of cases in Maine courts is up. According to data from the judicial branch, even though new prosecutions have declined by about 37% since 2010, cases are taking longer to resolve. There were 27.5% more felonies and misdemeanors pending on Jan. 24, compared to the same date in 2019. Mills is now asking lawmakers to deny the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services' requests for additional funding until the quasistate agency removes several new caseload limits and eligibility requirements for private attorneys who are still doing court-appointed work. "The current system has become a disastrous example of the perfect becoming the enemy of the good," said Mills. "Just a few years ago we had all the lawyers we needed, but not enough accountability. Now we have a system that is so focused on rules that it has driven away the lawyers." There's a fundamental disconnect between Mills' statements and many of those representing indigent defendants, even as everyone agrees the state is in a constitutional crisis, with hundreds of people in Maine courts being denied their right to a lawyer simply because none have been made available. The standards Mills has criticized were only recently imposed to address concerns that defendants were not receiving quality, effective representation, also promised by the Constitution. And her comments come as a judge is considering whether to release people from jail if they don't have an attorney within seven days. "I think the real undercurrent here is that there are some people behind the scenes, and obviously speaking at the podium, who think the way things were back in 1990 were just fine," said Tina Nadeau, director of the Maine Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "A judge could sit on his throne, and he could pick anyone before him to represent somebody, not really knowing if they know much about criminal law. Not really caring if the person got effective representation, but just that they had a lawyer, 'good enough.' We can't go back to 'good enough.'" SCATHING REPORTS Since July, Mills has urged the commission to change its experience requirements so former prosecutors and civil attorneys can more easily take court-appointed cases, even if they've never practiced criminal defense. She has also asked the commission to remove requirements that bar attorneys from taking certain appeals cases for clients whom they represented on the trial-level. Ben Goodman, a spokesperson for Mills, said Wednesday that the office has heard from attorneys in private practice who have tried to join the commission's ranks, but "have not received call backs." Goodman said some have been "dropped without explanation" or "cannot jump through the bureaucratic hurdles the commission has put in place." Mills' office was not able to provide any names of those attorneys Wednesday night. The standards Mills is criticizing were enacted following scathing reports and investigations into the quality of representation offered by Maine's indigent defense system. One study by the national Sixth Amendment Center (and paid for by the state Legislature) found attorneys were overworked, didn't have enough time for their clients and were routinely pleading guilty under pressure. Another by the state's watchdog agency criticized the quality of indigent representation in Maine. "I think it's really important that people understand, (the commission) did what it did because the Legislature said, 'Fix this problem,'" former director Justin Andrus said in a phone interview Wednesday. "And they were right to call it a problem." Andrus took over in 2021 after those scathing reports were issued and left the commission in 2023. He has now returned to private defense and court-appointed work. "I give a lot of credit to the governor and to the Legislature for recognizing the need to fund the public defense system in ways that it had never been funded prior to 2021," said Andrus. "The problem is, the funding needs to be adequate, however painful that may be. ... The fact that they did some good work doesn't mean that's the end." A DISCONNECT Jim Billings, the commission's current director, disputed that there is a significant number of lawyers who are interested in court-appointed work but are stifled by the commission's rules. "There's a myth that persists that there's ... this tidal wave of warriors that want to do our work," Billings said during a commission meeting on Wednesday. "And that somehow we are holding them back by a four-page application and some requirements to get on a specialized panel to do homicides, sex cases and protective custody cases." Donald Alexander, a former supreme court justice who sits on the commission's seven-member board, said he has heard from lawyers who felt discouraged by the commission's rules, even though he felt they have worked hard to make waivers easily available. "I think Jim's doing the best he can there. The problem is some people feel disrespected and don't apply for waivers," he said in an interview Wednesday night. "It's an issue that's difficult." Alexander also said he disagreed with how the Sixth Amendment Center report characterized Maine's indigent defense system; "that was a slap in the face to a lot of attorneys who do a pretty good job." Billings said the commission offers waivers to attorneys who want to do court-appointed work but don't meet the experience requirements. He said he's also made it clear to judges that he's willing to work with anyone in this situation. Only a handful, "literally a handful of people," have reached out, he said. "There's no cavalry coming to rescue the unrepresented people in the state of Maine," Billings said. "It is our roster, and it is future public defenders. And the people out there who have volunteered to help us, we're grateful for the extra help ... but that's not a long-term sustainable solution to the problem that the state of Maine has built itself into." Copy the Story Link
