Day: September 19, 2012

Rule will cap public defender caseload, By Scott Moyers, September 19, 2012, Southeast Missourian: “A new rule set to begin Oct. 1 will permit the state’s public defender system to defer certain criminal cases in a move that proponents say should give the state’s low-income defendants quality legal representation that has been lacking during a decade of swelling caseloads and dwindling resources. But a number of skeptics, including Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle, believe the rule’s new formula ‘greatly exaggerates’ the time that is being estimated for the defender caseloads and also suggest that the change is really a thinly veiled attempt to pressure the state for more dollars. But a July 31 Missouri Supreme Court ruling says the Missouri Public Defender Commission, which oversees the state’s 150 public defenders, has the authority to set maximum caseloads if the defender’s office asserts that the caseload capacity was exceeded…”