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State helping attorneys for indigents

March 12, 2007 12:35 am

By CHELYEN DAVIS

RICHMOND

The General Assembly budgeted $8 million in additional money for court-appointed attorneys, who in Virginia are the lowest-paid in the nation. It's not a lot of money, but the legislature also passed a bill allowing judges to waive the caps on fees paid to court-appointed attorneys, which is being heralded as a big improvement.

There's also a provision to collect information from lawyers on how many hours they really work on court-appointed cases, so there will be data to help determine how much money the system needs in the future.

These are critical improvements to the court-appointed side of Virginia's indigent-defense system, said Betsy Edwards of the Virginia Fair Trial Project.

"It's a big public policy decision that we think is fantastic," Edwards said. "We're very excited about what's happened in this session. It's a great step in the right direction."

In Virginia, attorneys who accept indigent cases are paid $90 an hour by the state, but the state also limits the number of hours they are paid for--less than two hours for low-end misdemeanors, even though it can take numerous hours to adequately investigate and prepare a defense for even a misdemeanor.

Those hourly limits mean that a lawyer defending a misdemeanor really gets about $120 total, regardless of how complex it might turn out to be.

Lawyers might have to make multiple court appearances and need time to interview witnesses and their own clients--things that will take far more than the hour and a half they're being paid for.

Even court-appointed lawyers defending people on serious felony charges--which could get the defendant 20 years to life in prison--get only a little over $1,000. Only capital cases, those that could result in the death penalty, have no cap on fees.

Lawyers have long decried those caps, saying that attorneys who take court-appointed cases lose money and indigent defendants don't always get the best representation that way.

Adding $8 million to the pot of money--currently at $58 million--that pays those fees isn't a lot, Edwards said, but it is the most the legislature has given to court-appointed attorneys in years. Gov. Tim Kaine has proposed giving $9 million; the $8 million figure was the legislature's compromise.

What's more critical, Edwards said, is that now lawyers will be able to petition judges for a waiver of the caps, in cases where lawyers feel they did a lot of work.

The legislature also made some changes to the other side of Virginia's indigent-defense system--the public defenders.

There are 25 public defender offices in the state to take on indigent cases. Court-appointed attorneys take the cases where there isn't a public defender office, or when the public defender's office has a conflict.

But the public defender offices have been plagued by low salaries, leading to a turnover of about 27 percent a year.

Now those public defenders will get a 13 percent raise.

David Johnson, executive director of Virginia's Indigent Defense Commission, hopes that will help with recruitment and retention of public defenders.

"The biggest problem we had was just our salary structure. It lagged so far behind," Johnson said.

Entry-level public defender salaries will move from about $42,600 to $48,000.

"It's still, for people coming out of law school with student loans, not a huge amount, but it's going to help us a lot," Johnson said. "We'll have to see what the impact is. "

All the changes still have to be approved by Kaine, but he is supportive of improvement pay for indigent defense, as evidenced by his budget amendments. He must finish all his amendments to legislation by later this month, and the legislature will return April 4 to deal with those amendments.

Chelyen Davis: 804/782-9362
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com