County Exploring Ways To Help Public Defender

CANTON - St. Lawrence County officials are exploring ways to help the Public Defender's Office cope with a growing case load.

Assistant Public Defender Christopher R. Curley last week announced his resignation, citing frustration with a growing number of cases. His departure leaves the department with five attorneys.

"They really do handle an enormous amount of cases," said County Administrator Karen M. St. Hilaire. "We had six attorneys in one office handling 2,600 to 2,700 cases. In the Conflict Public Defender's Office, we have four attorneys handling about 1,300 cases. We're totaling 300 to 400 cases per person."

Ms. St. Hilaire said the Public Defender's Office handled 4,447 cases in 2008, and 4,615 in 2009. The number could grow to 4,800 to 5,000 cases by the end of this year, she said.

"We handle a majority of the cases going through the criminal courts and the family courts," said Mary E. Rain, public defender. "You can't really get a sense of the case load based just on the numbers because you have to know how much time it takes per case. The numbers don't tell you if the defendant has one charge against them or five or six. I have one case where a defendant has 55 counts against her, but she's only going to show up as one case."

It's difficult to pinpoint a cause for the rise in cases, but Ms. Rain said a bad economy could mean more people qualify for public defense.

Ms. Rain said the office needs the seventh attorney to adequately defend clients. Any defendants her office cannot take on are often turned over assigned counsel - a pool of private practice attorneys who agree to take on indigent clients at a rate of $75 an hour.

Ms. St. Hilaire said the county last year spent $561,472 on assigned counsel, and expects to spend about $577,000 on the program this year.

"We're spending more because we don't have that seventh attorney we had at one point, and we've also had several vacancies this year," Ms. St. Hilaire said.

The problem is compounded by the need to appear in dozens of town and village courts. Shifting from a municipal court system to a district court system could relieve that, Ms. Rain and Ms. St. Hilaire said.

"We're wearing people out with the need to run back and forth to all these courts," Ms. St. Hilaire said. "We're talking about spending a lot of time traveling and a lot of money on mileage."

Another option is to convince neighboring towns to consolidate their courts, she said. Ms. St. Hilaire said she has formed a committee to look into both options.

"Everybody likes to have their own court," Ms. St. Hilaire said. "Many towns have applied for grants and spent a lot of money to set up nice courts, and it's very convenient for people to go to court in their own town, but there comes a point when we have to ask if we can do this any longer."