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

Heading: introduction

Text: These writ proceedings raise the question of the role of the courts, the public defender commission and the legal profession in fulfilling Missouri's constitutional obligation to provide attorneys to represent indigent defendants facing incarceration for their alleged crimes. There is an apocryphal story in legal circles that a well-known prosecutor some years ago voiced his support for the state to provide attorneys for those accused of serious crimes, noting that without legal representation, an accused cannot be tried: I can't fry `em if I can't try `em. The quip lacks good taste, but it highlights the state's problem. These cases are about public safety as well as constitutional rights. An adequate supply of lawyers available to represent indigent defendants is as important to the functioning of the criminal justice system as are adequate resources for law enforcement, prosecutors and the courts. The public defender brought these writ proceedings after the respondent judges appointed public defenders in three cases, contrary to rules established by the commission to control the caseload of the statewide public defender program. These cases are three of more than 83,000 in the most recent fiscal year in which a public defender was assigned to defend indigent persons charged with crimes that carried potential for incarceration. [1] The constitution protects the right of an accused to an attorney; the state of Missouri, through its executive and the General Assembly, provides the funds to meet this obligation. The problem that the commission confronts is that the resources provided for indigent defense are inadequate. [2] The statewide public defender system, under rules adopted by the commission, had the capacity last fiscal year to spend only 7.7 hours per case, including trial, appellate and capital cases. [3] After the commission adopted the rules to control its caseload, the disputes arose that are the subjects of these three writ proceedings. In St. Francois County, respondent Judge Kenneth W. Pratte appointed the public defender in violation of a provision in the commission's rules that denied services to indigent defendants who at some point had retained private counsel. In Boone County, respondent Judge Gary Oxenhandler appointed the public defender to defend a person accused of a probation violation; his order countermanded the public defender's designation of its district office as being of limited availability, under which the office declined to take cases of alleged probation violations, because the office caseload exceeded its maximum allowable cases. In the other Boone County case, respondent Judge Gene Hamilton appointed a full-time public defender in the lawyer's private capacity as a member of the local bar to represent an indigent person accused of a probation violation. These three writ proceedings raise questions as to the validity of the commission's rules governing caseload management. Before dealing with the specific problems presented by these three writ cases, it is useful to review the constitutional right to counsel and the history and current status of the public defender system to understand the overall problem these cases represent.