Opinion ID: 787092
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Parties and the Assigned-Counsel Plan

Text: 4 Mitchell is an African-American attorney licensed to practice law in New York State (the State). He has previously served as assigned counsel for indigent persons accused of felonies, in accordance with an assignment plan required by New York law. 5 State law, see N.Y. County Law art. 18-B (Article 18-B), requires 6 [t]he governing body of each county and the governing body of the city in which a county is wholly contained [to] place in operation throughout the county a plan for providing counsel to persons charged with a crime [for which a sentence of imprisonment is authorized] ... who are financially unable to obtain counsel. 7 N.Y. County Law § 722; see id. § 722-a. The municipality is required, inter alia, to compensate, at statutorily capped rates, attorneys assigned pursuant to such a plan. See id. §§ 722-b, 722-e. 8 The City of New York (the City), which encompasses the First Department and part of the State's Second Judicial Department (Second Department), has a plan that was adopted in 1965 by executive order of the City's Mayor, in cooperation with the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and five county bar associations (the Bar Associations), and was approved by the Judicial Conference of the State. Under the City's plan, its principal provider of legal services to indigent defendants is the Legal Aid Society; additional services are furnished by individual assigned attorneys who have been recommended pursuant to a joint undertaking by the Bar Associations (the Assigned Counsel Plan or the Plan). The Plan required each of the Bar Associations to prepare and certify a list of attorneys 9 who are admitted to practice in the State of New York and who, in the opinion of the bar association, which shall consider their experience in criminal practice, are competent to give adequate representation to defendants under Article 18-B of the County Law. 10 Assigned Counsel Plan art. II. The composite list of attorneys designated by the bar association[s] as available for service in either the Supreme Court or the Criminal Court or both, id. art. II, § 1, is generally referred to as an 18-B Panel. 11 The Plan also authorizes the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, First and Second Departments, to promulgate such rules with respect to this Plan as they may deem necessary. Id. art. VIII. Rules and standards adopted by the Appellate Division First Department (the Rules or Appellate Division 18-B Rules) regulate, inter alia, the selection, performance, and professional conduct of individual 18-B Panel attorneys. See N.Y. Comp.Codes R. & Regs. tit. 22, § 612.0 et seq. (adopted July 1, 1980). At the times pertinent to this action, an attorney seeking certification to the 18-B Panel for service in the New York Supreme Court — which has jurisdiction over felony cases — was required to have tried at least three felony matters. ( See Complaint ¶ 7.) The Plan allows the appropriate Appellate Division to add an attorney to, or remove a previously certified attorney from, its 18-B Panel at any time. Assigned Counsel Plan art. II, § 5. It also allows the Bar Associations to make additions to and deletions from their respective lists of approved attorneys periodically. See id. The Rules provide that the appointment of an attorney to an 18-B Panel is for an indefinite term subject to recertification as directed by the justices of the Appellate Division, First Department. N.Y. Comp.Codes R. & Regs. tit. 22, § 612.2 (as amended, April 11, 1994). 12 In addition to adopting the above Rules, the Appellate Division First Department created a Central Screening Committee (the Screening Committee or Committee) to screen all applications for 18-B Panel membership. See id. § 612.6(a) (as amended, April 11, 1994). The Rules provide that the members of the Committee may be chosen for three-year terms either by the presidents of the [Bar A]ssociations or [by] the justices of the Appellate Division, First Department, id. § 612.4 (as amended, April 11, 1994); members' terms may be extended by the Appellate Division, see id. The Committee's bylaws, as approved by the Appellate Division, provide that, with respect to decisions on certification to the panel, [t]he action of the Committee is final and non-appealable. Screening Committee Bylaw 2.7. Neither the bylaws nor the Appellate Division 18-B Rules make any provision for judicial review of a Committee decision. 13 Defendants-appellees are members of the Screening Committee, including the Committee's present Chair. They are self-described volunteers (Hearing Transcript, May 24, 2002 (May Tr.), at 9) who are apparently entitled to representation and indemnification by the State under Public Officers Law § 17 (McKinney 2001), see Formal Opinion of the State Attorney General dated December 20, 1979, 1979 N.Y. Op. Att'y Gen. 71, 71-72, and are referred to hereafter as the State Defendants.