SJC justice orders lawyers appointed in indigent criminal casesBOSTON -- A justice of the state supreme court ordered Hampden County judges to appoint private attorneys to represent poor defendants, while Statehouse leaders cautioned it could take months to resolve the pay dispute that has led many of the lawyers to walk off the job.
Tuesday's order by Supreme Judicial Court Justice Francis X. Spina formalizes a directive that Spina had given to the judges last Thursday. Judges in the Hampden County courts began ordering lawyers to represent indigent defendants on Friday. The private lawyers in question, known as "bar advocates," assist the state's understaffed public defender agency in representing accused criminals who can't afford a lawyer. In recent months, many of them have refused to take court-appointed cases, especially in central and western Massachusetts, in protest of a state-mandated pay rate that they say is way below the industry standard. Spina's order directs the judges to assign the attorneys to cases, with or without their consent, and also ordered the judges to report any attorneys who refuse to take a case without a valid excuse to the state Board of Bar Overseers. By forcing judges to match bar advocates with indigent defendants, the courts are bypassing the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the agency that oversees the bar advocates program and has been negotiating the pay raises with state officials. "It's unfair to force people to take cases," said Chris Todd, a bar advocate in Hampden County District Court. "Instead of fixing the problem they're doing something that isn't doing anybody any good. It puts more strain on the situation." Bar advocates are paid $30 an hour for District Court cases, $39 an hour for Superior Court cases and $54 an hour for murder cases. The Legislature recently approved a $7.50 across-the-board hike in the bar advocates' fees, but lawmakers ended their two-year session on July 31 without funding the pay increase. Even with the raise, the fee still would fall short of the $60-and-hour the lawyers are seeking for district court cases, which they say is the industry average. The crisis has worsened in recent weeks, following a July ruling by the SJC that defendants held for more than seven days without seeing a lawyer must be released, and that charges be dropped against those who haven't had access to an attorney for more than 45 days. Bar advocates in Plymouth, Bristol and Worcester counties have joined those in Hampden County in refusing to take cases, and judges in Hampden and Plymouth counties have released a handful of defendants who had been held too long without seeing a lawyer. Meanwhile, Romney, Senate president Robert E. Travaglini, House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and representatives of the Committee for Public Counsel Services met Tuesday to discuss the pay dispute. Afterward, Finneran said it could be months before the Legislature deals with the pay dispute. The powerful Democratic speaker said he would be "very resistant" to calling lawmakers back for a special session to further address the problem. However William Leahy, chief counsel at the Committee for Public Counsel Services, said he hoped that action could come much sooner. "Our hope is that we hear back from the legislative leaders and the executive branch in a positive way over the next several days, the next week or so, and that we move on from there," Leahy said. "We certainly hope that compensation is a part of that." Last week, Romney filed a bill to wrest control of the public counsel committee from the judicial branch.
"What they do is essential for the commonwealth and our citizens, and I'm willing to engage in a constructive dialogue on that," Romney said of the state's 2,500 bar advocates. "But what I don't support in any way, shape or form is the idea that people can walk out of the workplace and that criminal defendants can be let free." © Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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