Today on “This Week” Governor Patrick said that in Massachusetts we solve our budget problems by “turning to” each other not “turning on” each other. At the Roundtable Governor Patrick made his comment about turning to each other not on each other
As a member of the court-appointed legal community, I feel turned ON not turned TO – no one asked ME for cost saving, or told ME in advance that there was no value or trust in what I do as a court appointed attorney in the child welfare system.
?Why didn’t Gov. Patrick turn TO the court-appointed legal community rather than turning on us?
Was it because Gov. Patrick bought into propaganda from the District Attorney’s PR campaign? Remember, I wrote a letter published in the Globe about why the plan being pushed by District Attorneys to move to an all staff system was based on bad math and deliberate distortion. Of course, what a District Attorney says that if everyone were represented by staff, on both sides, cases would be “processed” more easily, it is clear that “innocent until proven guilty” is not the goal. It may be the attack from the DAs shows that an independent defense bar fights back harder then DAs like.
I remember how shocked I was on Sunday, January 23rd when my phone rang and it was Andrea Estes from the Boston Globe wanting to interview me because Governor Deval Patrick wanted to do away with private bar advocates, you know, independent small business people, representing defendants in our privatized system. That led to this Globe article that Governor Patrick bought into the DAs pitch.
Maybe, instead, Gov. Patrick should turn on the DAs, and consolidate the prosecutorial function under AG Coakley, and let her set up regional offices and move staff where needed. We no longer have counties (mostly). Why should there be 11 county DAs earning more than the AG, or nearly as much as the Attorney General – each with two to six full time “press flacks” who contribute nothing to prosecution and earn 100k or more? Further, why should taxpayers pay 2.6 million for the Massachusetts District Attorney Association – it does no prosecution, is a lobbying organization with over tones of countryclub. If the Governor wants to consolidate agencies, the District Attorneys surely could be consolidated – why do we have 11 of them in this day and age?
But no, I don;’t feel that in dealing with the cost of indigent defense Massachusetts turned “to each other”. I was turned ON.
If only when the rates were raised by Chapter 54 of the Acts of 2005 the commissions that were supposed to pay for the rate increase had been appointed!
Instead, neither Gov. Romney or Gov. Patrick appointed the commission on indigency verification (did I tell you indigency verification is still largely don’t ask don’t tell, and doesn’t access a single data base, not even DOR?) or reclassification/diversion of non violent offenses was supposed to get a commission too -did not happen. So the rates went up, indigency determination stayed a sloppy old fashioned mess, and case load did not get trimmed.
Did the executive take responsibility for failing to appoint those commissions? NO. Instead, the executive blamed the independent contractors who shoulder the work of representing indigent people per statute, in both criminal and mandated civil matters like child welfare and guardianships of the indigent incompetent. I am very, very disappointed personally.
bragging that he ALWAYS has LABOR at the table and that is how he has closed the budget gap. I guess our Governor views the District Attorneys as LABOR but not those dedicated attorneys who do indigent defense. In his words, either you are part of the problem or the solution. Well, he never allowed us to be part of the solution. Why the Governor would allow the District Attorneys to be the experts on defense is astounding. When has he turned to the defense bar and asked our opinion on cost saving mechanisms to reduce the DA’s budgets? Never, and, it will never happen.
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a couple of the Governor’s shortcomings: 1)he embraces half-baked ideas. Not necessarily bad ideas, just not thoroughly considered ideas 2)he doesn’t really listen to people.
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p>He might do occasional town meetings and make appearances at conventions, but here comes a major policy change, and he completely ignores half the stake-holders.
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p>A true Progressive sincerely listens to the other side, even if he decides to reject their argument.
…to which those who do defense work belong, to whom he could have reached out? I have to admit that given my preference generally for using actual public sector workers for government jobs rather than contracting out it would seem to make sense that public defenders also be state employees rather than independent contractors. I think some jurisdictions in the country elect public defenders just like public prosecutors. We probably still have DAs for the same reason that we have other county offices in that they are constitutional, but maybe giving them a relationship to the AG comparable to Registers of Deeds’ relationship to the Secretary of the Commonwealth would be appropriate.
The Massachusetts Association of Court Appointed Attorneys – MACAA – see http://www.macaa.biz/
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p>MACAA is a private 501(c)(6) association funded solely by dues.
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p>As an attorney, I have a preference for good representation, whether it comes from staff public defenders with constitutionally competent caseloads – in most systems with mostly staff counsel, what happens is the system becomes more and more underfunded, the caseloads become over whelming, and representation becomes a sham and an illusion. For example, see Gideon’s Broken Promise
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p>I am a private attorney, with a strong private family law practice – but I accept appointments to represent children and families in child welfare cases and they get the benefit of my experience and independence. I also do some appointed guardian ad litem work. In my appointed work, I pay my own health insurance, my own malpractice insurance, and all my costs. When the state feels short of money, they may float a free loan by taking longer to pay me.
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p>There is no way paying benefits and over head will be cheaper for the state. There are already some staff attorneys who do some child welfare cases. When one of my clients needs work in the Probate Court (such as a permanent custody order or a divorce) I do it pro bono. The staff tell me they cannot do that. Sometimes getting a child home and a situation stabilized requires divorce or other such probate and family court work of this sort, such a divorce from an abusive partner.
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p>Other organizations eager to meet with the Governor on this proposal are the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers – MACDL, their website is http://www.macdl.com/
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p>There is no reason to suck indigent defense into the executive and in my opinion, it is also unconstitutional in our state to do so.
The District Attorneys are creatures of the legislature and the legislature can regulate them in any way or do away with them all together. There is precise case law on this issue.
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p>We in Mass have a blended system in that there are employed Public Defenders and independant contractor appointed counsel. It is this blended system which has been ranked among the best in the country precisely because it meets the 10 Points established by the American Bar Association, including independence not enjoyed in an all PD system. That said, the Governor well knows just how well thought of our system is, as do the District Attorneys. However, that is not the point. The only basis for the Governor’s plan to demolish our system is $$$$$, and the only basis for the District Attorney’s criticism of our blended system is money. The Governor asserts that employing 1000 new attorneys with overhead and benefits and pensions plus 500 support staff with overhead and benefits and pensions will be cheaper than paying the private attorneys who get nothing other than their hourly rate. Can anyone honestly think that hiring this number of new state employees will be cheaper than paying on average the $50 per hour rate of compensation??
I live in Hampshire County, which isn’t a real county anymore. Nonetheless, we elected a new DA this year.
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p>Because he was not appointed, he was able to run and win on a Progressive agenda. It’s possible he would have been appointed anyway, but the point is that we elected someone who represents our communities’ values.
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p>I don’t know if it would have harmed his opponent elsewhere that, in an unthinking moment, he had signed the petition against marriage equality. But here in the Happy Valley, that means something.
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