Opinion ID: 1132505
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: attorney fees collection practices

Text: (2a) Many of the commission's findings deal with improprieties in petitioner's efforts to enforce orders for payment by defendants to the county for the costs of the public defender's legal services. Those orders were made pursuant to Penal Code section 987.8, which provides that if, at the conclusion of a criminal proceeding in a trial court, the court determines that a defendant who was represented by the public defender or a court-appointed attorney has the ability to pay all or part of the cost of counsel, the court shall order the defendant to pay that sum to the county in the manner in which the court believes reasonable and compatible with the defendant's financial ability. Execution may be issued on the order in the same manner as on a judgment in a civil action. The order ... shall not be enforced by contempt. [1]