Officials told to testify in public defender disputeSJC justice eyes effort to resolve low-pay crisisA Supreme Judicial Court justice yesterday ordered two ranking officials in charge of the state's court-appointed attorneys to appear before him Monday and explain their efforts to resolve a protest by Hampden County lawyers who are refusing to represent poor clients because of the state's low pay scale.
The protest, centered in Springfield, has threatened to derail legal representation for indigent criminal defendants statewide. This week, the crisis prompted an order from the high court allowing judges to assign cases to private lawyers with or without their consent, a move that was strongly criticized and praised by lawyers and state officials on both sides of the issue. Yesterday's order from Justice Francis X. Spina directs Anthony Bonavita, president of the Hampden County Bar Advocates and a top official with the Committee for Public Counsel Services to appear in court and testify "concerning the failure of bar advocates to appear for duty when scheduled" and about efforts to increase the availability of court-appointed attorneys in Hampden County. Spina, a former CPCS member, also ordered the officials to show him the contracts between their organizations and their attorneys' assignment schedules in Hampden County's District and Superior courts. On Tuesday, Spina ordered judges in Hampden County to appoint private attorneys to represent indigent criminal defendants with or without the lawyers' consent and to report them to the state Board of Bar Overseers if they refuse to take a case without a valid excuse. Earlier this month, a ruling by the high court paved the way for three suspected drug dealers in Hampden County to be released from jail without bail pending trial because no attorneys were available to represent them. The release triggered sharp criticism from state Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly and Governor Mitt Romney, who said the judiciary was putting the public's safety at risk. Bonavita said he would appear in court Monday as ordered but said he doubted the lawyers' rebellion would end until pay is hiked beyond current rates -- $37.50 an hour for District Court cases, $46.50 for Superior Court cases, and $61.50 for murder cases. CPCS chief William Leahy said he would send a deputy to the hearing, and his agency was meeting with leaders from county and state bar associations to try to encourage more lawyers to take cases despite the pay rates, which are among the lowest of the 50 states. Reilly said he hoped Monday's hearing would find a solution to the crisis, other than immediately raising the compensation rates. "Throwing money at the problem is not the solution here," Reilly said. "The structure of CPCS has to be examined very carefully here, and changes are in order, in my opinion." Shawn Feddeman, a Romney spokeswoman, praised Spina for moving to halt the release of the county's indigent criminal defendants. "We think that these are very positive developments," she said. "The governor believes that public safety needs to come first." Several high-ranking members of the state bar, however, said they were troubled that the courts would allow attorneys to be pressed into representing clients against their will and expressed doubt that a solution could be reached, short of a pay increase from the Legislature. "I'm hopeful that what we don't end up with is a situation where the right to counsel is being fulfilled by attorneys forced to defend criminal defendants," said Richard C. Van Nostrand, president of the Massachusetts Bar Association. "The number of instances in history of a person put to work against their will and doing that work successfully is pretty limited," he said. Van Nostrand said he hoped that the hearing would show that bar associations are making sincere efforts to end the standoff. He said the was sending e-mails to members urging them to take new cases. Renee M. Landers, president of Boston Bar Association, defended the Committee for Public Counsel Services, saying it has a national model for training attorneys. She said Spina's actions would not address the root of the problem. "It's another finger in the dyke," she said. "The state has announced that this is a huge, critically important public safety interest. If it's such an important public safety interest, they should pay for it." Andrew L. Kaufman, a Harvard law professor, said Spina's order allowing involuntary case assignments raises troubling constitutional questions and could be challenged in court if lawyers are forced to shoulder more cases beyond the standard pro bono caseloads.
"You can imagine conscripting people to do things like respond to Hurricane Charley," Kaufman said. "But this is a really different kind of emergency. This is an emergency that the government has caused." © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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