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…”
Tag: Legal aid
Civil Legal Assistance – New Jersey
Report: Greater number of Hudson County’s poor not receiving representation in civil cases, By Daniel Reyes, June 19, 2012, Jersey Journal: “An increasing number of the poor in Hudson County and across the state are finding themselves without legal assistance in civil cases, according to a recent report. The Civil Legal Assistance Gap, an annual report compiled by the Legal Services of New Jersey, says that cuts in funding combined with an increase in poverty has led to a higher percentage of people going without legal representation in civil cases…”
Public Defender System – Michigan
Michigan Finally Eyeing Changes To Lawyers For Poor, By Carrie Johnson, June 14, 2012, NPR: “Lawyers on all sides agree the system enshrined nearly 50 years ago that gives all defendants the right to a lawyer is not working. The Justice Department calls it a crisis — such a big problem that it’s been doling out grants to improve how its adversaries perform in criminal cases. Consider Michigan: Five times since the 1980s, independent groups have called on Michigan to change the way it pays lawyers for the poor. Each time, state officials have done nothing. And a 2008 study by a legal nonprofit association said the state’s indigent defense system had reached a “constitutional crisis.” But a lawsuit and a growing number of exonerations may be starting to change that. . .”