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County to revise defense system

Hunter Stenback, Senior Staff Writer

The Butler County Public Defender Commission is looking into a new, potentially cost-cutting system to appoint attorneys to poor felony defendants.

According to Gary Sheets, human resources director for the Butler County Board of Commissioners, alleged felons are currently defended by an attorney from a pre-approved list of public defenders who bill the county at an hourly rate.

Under the proposed new system, a non-profit organization with a staff of salaried attorneys would be contracted out by the Public Defender Commission to represent felony suspects.

"The system that is being proposed to replace the attorney appointment list is a system that would involve the hiring of a non-profit corporation who would in turn hire 14 salaried attorneys," Sheets said. "Those 14 attorneys would be paid $45,000 a year by the non-profit corporation, and the County Public Defender Commission would then contract with the non-profit organization to dispatch those 14 attorneys to various judges in the common pleas court."

Unlike a similar proposal the county Public Defender Commission rejected two years ago, in which the salaried attorneys would have worked for the court, Sheets said the new proposal eliminates the potential for ethical conflicts.

"The difference would be that the public defenders in the current proposal would work for a non-profit organization that would be hired by the Public Defender Commission, whereas in the previous proposal the judges had proposed that the attorneys work for the court," Sheets said. "That's the system that the Public Defender Commission objected to because they felt the attorneys who represent criminal defendants in court shouldn't be beholden to the judge they appear before for their jobs."

According to Chris Pagan, president of the Butler County Bar Association and the Butler County Public Defender Commission, the new system would allow for a more independent selection of attorneys.

"What is nice about this proposal is that it gives the Bar Association and the not-for-profit the opportunity to self-regulate and govern itself and among the leadership decide who is going to take the cases and how they're going to get paid," Pagan said. "It can be arranged in a way that really helps out these attorneys and their private practices."

If it is implemented, Pagan said the proposed public defender system has the potential to cut Butler County's costs significantly.

"The proposal is going to be less than the current expenditure, so it would be a capped number compared to now where they have to pay out whatever comes in," Pagan said. "It will absolutely save the county money."

Sheets agreed with Pagan, but had some reservations about the cost of some of the finer details of the proposal.

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"It hasn't been tried, so you can't really evaluate it, but on paper it saves money because the current system costs well over $1,000,000 and this system is only going to cost about $630,000 or so," Sheets said. "The problem is that it's not known yet whether 14 attorneys can handle the number of cases that they're going to be asked to handle."

According to Sheets, there is currently no additional money dedicated to commodities such as office space, secretarial help, telephones, people who interview witnesses or researchers.

Also problematic to Sheets is how defendants will be represented prior to being charged with a felony in municipal court.

"In the current system, the appointed attorneys get the case as soon as the alleged felon is arrested," Sheets said. "In the proposed system that is being talked about, the attorneys who work for a judge through this contract with a non-profit would get the case when it gets assigned to a judge, which leaves the part of the process that occurs before the person is indicted unaddressed."

According to Pagan, municipal court representation still needs to be addressed.

"We're going to have to deal with the municipal court, so there's going to have to be a larger appropriation to deal with cases at that point," Pagan said.

According to Pagan, the Bar Association is proposing to have another group of attorneys whose responsibility would only be defending the felony case in municipal court, and then another attorney would have the responsibility of defending them in the common pleas court.

Miami University sophomore Nick Strause believes the proposed plan makes sense because it cuts costs, but is still an unnecessary burden on Butler County taxpayers.

"I think it's pretty unfair that taxpayers are footing the bill for criminals to be defended because of their own wrongdoing," Strause said. "But if there has to be a system in place, I guess it's good that the new plan has the potential to cut costs."

The proposed system is still in the planning stages and nothing can be implemented until a non-profit organization is formed.

"The situation right now is that there are people out there trying to put together a non-profit organization in order to prepare a proposal for the Public Defender Commission to consider," Sheets said. "The biggest time question is how long it will take to create a legitimate non-profit corporation and whether or not that organization can get up and be capable of doing what is being asked of it."


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