Opinion ID: 1132505
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Recording Fee Orders as Apparent Condition of Probation

Text: The commission found: Fee orders were frequently recorded on the form of probation order without notation that the order was not a condition of probation, thus creating the impression that it was a condition. Only if a public defender objected did petitioner make exceptions, e.g., by writing not a condition of probation on the form. The exhibits include 10 cases in which petitioner's fee order appears on the probation order under the Terms of Probation opposite the space for Other. These orders were made between June 27, 1979, and July 1, 1980. Petitioner calls to our attention, and we have found, only one exhibit ( Orellana containing an order dated June 9, 1980) in which petitioner added, Not a condition of probation (or its equivalent) after such an entry. On another order ( Rodriguez, May 20, 1980) petitioner apparently had entered and crossed out the fee order on the probation form, and made an equivalent order on a separate printed form on which boxes could be checked for payment of the fee through the court clerk or, instead, through the county bureau of resources and collections. In that case, petitioner provided for payment through the clerk. In still another case ( Rueda ) it appears that on June 3, 1980, petitioner similarly deleted a fee order on the probation form and made the order on the separate form but checked the box for payment through the county bureau. Three deputy public defenders testified that when petitioner entered the fee order on the probation form, he did not advise the defendant that the fee order was not a condition of probation. Petitioner conceded in his testimony that payment of attorney fees cannot be made a condition of probation under section 987.8. [4] He testified that he did not write on the probation forms that the fee orders were not conditions of probation because he had discussed the issue with the deputy public defenders and had an understanding with them that a fee order was never to be treated as such a condition. He conceded, however, that many or most defendants, on seeing the fee order entered on the probation form without explanation, would fail to realize that it was not a condition of probation. He testified, in justification, that we had no other form ... to hand him [a defendant], even though, as already explained, the exhibits contain two instances where a separate form was in fact used. (The notation 11-75 at the bottom of that separate fee-order form, which appears designed for all municipal courts in Los Angeles County, seems to indicate that it came into use in November 1975.) Petitioner presented testimony of two other judicial officers of the same court, Judge Kaufman and Commissioner Murphy, that they too wrote the fee orders opposite Other on the form for terms of probation, though Commissioner Murphy added that he crossed out the word Other. Petitioner correctly points out in his brief that there was no direct evidence that any defendant was in fact misled into thinking that the fee order was a condition of probation. Petitioner also points to the masters' finding in Rueda that petitioner to the knowledge of the Public Defender, had no intention of enforcing the fee order as a condition of probation. But the masters also found that the unexplained presence of the fee order on the Rueda probation order had the potential of leading defendant Rueda to believe that payment of the fee order was a condition of probation. The commission's finding as to petitioner's recording fee orders in a way that created the impression that they were conditions of probation thus is supported by evidence that is not only clear and convincing but also uncontradicted.