Private lawyers for the poor are disappointed in the plan, saying it will drive up costs for the state.
BOSTON – State legislators have approved a plan to double the number of full-time staff public defenders to take over some of the work now done by private, state-contracted lawyers for the poor.
Under a plan in the state budget for the new fiscal year that started Friday, full-time public defenders on staff will handle about 25 percent of the cases involving people who are indigent and can't afford to hire their own lawyer, up from the current 10 percent.
The plan calls for hiring about 250 additional staff public defenders, plus an additional 50 to 75 support staff, according to a spokeswoman for Sen. Stephen M. Brewer, D-Barre, the chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. The new public defenders and support staff would need to be hired by the end of the new fiscal year on June 30, according to the budget.
The plan needs to be approved by Gov. Deval L. Patrick in order to become law. The governor, who received the budget on Friday, has the option of approving items in the budget, sending items back with suggested amendments or vetoing them. The governor has 10 days from last Friday to act on the budget.
The plan for changing defense of the indigent, aimed at reducing costs, also reduces a yearly cap on billable hours for the private lawyers to 1,650 hours, down from the current 1,800 hours. The plan, approved by legislators on Friday along with the rest of the budget, also bars the private lawyers from accepting new cases after 1,350 hours, down from the current 1,400 hours.
Currently, the state contracts with about 3,000 private lawyers to provide almost all the legal work for the indigent. The private lawyers receive hourly pay that includes $50 an hour for District Court cases, $100 an hour for a murder case and $60 an hour for Superior Court.
The state also now has 230 staff public defenders on the payroll to handle some of the criminal cases.
Anthony C. Bonavita, a private lawyer for the poor in Springfield, said he was not pleased with the new plan. “I still don't see how the state will save money,” he said.
Julia H. Durchanek, a private lawyer for the poor in Holyoke, said she was disappointed in the plan. Durchanek said the plan is “a slippery slope” that lays the groundwork for the state to eventually hire even more public defenders to do more of the work now being done by private lawyers under contract with the state. “They are creating a situation where the state will have to spend more money,” said Durchanek.
Bonavita, Durchanek and other private lawyers for the poor have said they believe it will cost the state more to hire additional full-time lawyers since the state will need to pay pensions, health care and overhead such as office space and utilities.
The budget cuts annual payments for the private lawyers to about $93 million, down about 20 percent from the $117 million approved in the original budget for the prior fiscal year. The Committee for Public Counsel Services, which oversees defense of the poor, saw its budget increased to $45 million, up about 36 percent.
Under the budget plan, current private lawyers for the poor would be given priority in getting hired as public defenders. The committee for public counsel services would need to report by Sept. 1 on progress for putting the new plan in place and whether there is enough money in the budget for hiring the additional public defenders.
Rep. Angelo J. Puppolo Jr., a Springfield Democrat and member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said changes were needed, but not the wholesale changes sought by Patrick. Puppolo said the new plan is reasonable for reducing costs.
“The system really wasn't broke,” Puppolo said. “It didn't need to completely change.”
Patrick had proposed abolishing the entire system of private lawyers on contract and replacing them with 1,000 additional new staff lawyers and 500 support workers.
Jay Gonzalez, secretary of the Executive Office for Administration and Finance, is currently reviewing the budget, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday. Gonzalez was unavailable for comment on Tuesday, but in an interview last month, he said the more conservative changes approved by legislators are "absolutely" a victory in some sense for the administration.
"It's moving in the right direction," said Gonzalez, the point man for Patrick on the issue. "We have to go in this direction."
The state House of Representatives earlier had approved a bill to have staff public defenders handle 20 percent of indigent defense, while the Senate had approved a separate bill that called for 30 percent. In the end, the two branches compromised at 25 percent.
The plan keeps the fee for an indigent person at $150. The plan also improves procedures for verifying that someone cannot afford to hire a lawyer.
The plan also calls for overhauling the committee for public counsel services, an agency under the judicial branch that is led by a 15-member board of directors, all appointed by the state Supreme Judicial Court. Under the plan, the high court would name 9 directors and two apiece would be appointed by the governor, the Senate president and the speaker of the state House of Representatives. Terms of current board members would expire in three months, but they would be eligible for reappointment under the new structure.