Opinion ID: 1766494
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 16

Heading: Appointing Lawyers to Fill the Need

Text: The resolution of these writ proceedings leaves remaining a troubling question: can lawyers be conscripted to fulfill the state's obligation to provide counsel without being paid for their services? This Court in 1971 announced that it no longer would appoint counsel without pay to meet the state's obligation to provide counsel. Green, 470 S.W.2d at 572. But the Court drew back a bit 10 years later in Wolff. That case drew a distinction between the lawyer's time and out-of-pocket expensesthe lawyer's time can be conscripted but not the lawyer's money. Wolff, 617 S.W.2d at 67. The problem has grown substantially in the 28 years since Wolff was decided. The commission estimates that, to handle the public defender's current assigned caseload, 176 additional trial division lawyers and 21.87 additional appellate division lawyers would be needed to meet the standards the commission has set in its rules. ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER COMMISSION at 70, 72. There currently are 300 trial division attorneys and 35.5 appellate division attorneys. Id. These numbers tend to show that if the criminal justice system depends on appointing lawyers to work without compensation, the burden of taking such work in many communities may fall disproportionately on the relatively few lawyers who are experienced in handling criminal cases. Since Wolff, a number of courts in other states have confronted this issue, and some have gone so far as to require the state to increase funding for public defender services, a course that most courts, including this Court, would be reluctant to pursue. [39] The appointment of sufficient numbers of private lawyers to meet the need, however, raises the prospect of the state being sued under the federal civil rights law, 42 U.S.C. section 1983, in either a state or federal court, for violation of the individual lawyer's right not to be deprived of his or her livelihood. Lawyers, however, are members of a profession and have an obligation to perform public service, as this Court has noted in Wolff and other cases. This Court has held that Missouri courts have no power to compel attorneys to serve in civil actions without compensation. State ex rel. Scott v. Roper, 688 S.W.2d 757, 769 (Mo. banc 1985). In doing so, the Court noted that requiring lawyers to take civil cases as members of a profession was unsupported in the most recent draft of the Model Code of Professional Responsibility, in which a mandatory provision for pro bono representation had been rejected. The Court further discerned that courts have [no] inherent power in civil cases to [compel] representation without compensation[;] to do so, the Court reasoned would allow courts to infringe on the constitutional right of Missouri citizens to `have a natural right to ... the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry.' Id. at 768-69 (citing Mo. Const. art. I, sec. 2) (omission in original). In contrast to parties in civil cases, indigent defendants in criminal cases have a constitutional right to counsel that the courts are obligated to ensure is met. See Argersinger, 407 U.S. at 42, 92 S.Ct. 2006. As members of the legal profession, Missouri lawyers also have an obligation to ensure that this constitutional right is met. Missouri's lawyers have been appointed to represent indigent defendants since Missouri first became a state and long before any court ever found a constitutional right to counsel. See Scott, 688 S.W.2d at 759-60. Lawyers, as members of a public profession, accept the duty to perform public service without compensation. But there are many criminal cases that are sufficiently difficult or complex that an appointment to provide representation without compensation may be oppressive or confiscatory, especially if the burden of providing such representation falls on the relatively few lawyers who appear fully qualified to defend difficult criminal cases. The prerogative of the state, through its courts or otherwise, to dictate how an individual lawyer's professional obligation is to be discharged may be limited by principles that apply to regulatory takings and other deprivations of property without due process of law. [40] The troubling question of paying lawyers is not presented directly in these writ proceedings, but the issue lurks behind the application of the only coercive remedy the trial judges of this state currently possessthe appointment of counsel who would be required to work without pay. While not a coercive remedy available to the courts, the provision in 18 CSR 10-4.010 for the public defender to notify the presiding judge and prosecutors may provide the courts, the prosecutors and public defenders an opportunity to develop workable strategies to reduce the demand for public defender services, as discussed above. [41]