Court Opinion

ID: 9719089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:42:15.379346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:04.585438
License: Public Domain

Defendant Seth Morgan appeals from a district court order that requires defendant to pay the clerk of the court $513.00 within sixty days to repay the state for the services of appointed counsel. He contends that he has no ability to pay this money. We reverse and remand for additional findings.
Before considering the circumstances of this case, we examine the statutory framework for appointment of counsel. The public defender statute creates a three-step procedure for consideration of the applicant’s financial circumstances. In the first step, the court determines whether the applicant is needy by considering the applicant’s income, assets, outstanding obligations and number of dependents. 13 V.S.A. § 5236(b). “A needy person is a person who at the time of need assessment is financially unable, without undue hardship, to provide for full payment of an attorney and all other necessary expenses of representation or who is otherwise unable to employ an attorney.” A.O. 4, § 5(b). If the applicant is determined to be needy and is charged with a serious offense, then the court will assign counsel.
In the second step, the court determines the applicant’s ability to pay for all or part of the defender services. 13 V.S.A. § 5238(b). At this step, the income of the applicant’s cohabitating family members is deemed to be income of the applicant. Id.; A.O. 4, § 5(d). Any applicant whose income is above 125% of the federal poverty guidelines is presumed able to pay part of the cost of services. Id. The statute sets forth the repayment amount, according to income, *534as a percentage of the average direct cost of representation per case. 13 V.S.A. § 5238(c). In the third step, the court designates the repayment amount as a co-payment, which must be paid prior to assignment of counsel, id. § 5238(d), as reimbursement, which must be paid within sixty days of the order, id. § 5238(e), or partially co-payment and partially reimbursement.
An applicant who has been ordered to make a co-payment or reimbursement may petition the court at any time for remission of all or part of the amount on the ground that it will impose a manifest hardship on the applicant or the applicant’s family. See id. § 5238(f). The applicant may also appeal a co-payment or reimbursement order to a single justice of this Court. Id. § 5238(h).
In this case, defendant was charged with burglary of an occupied dwelling in violation of 13 V.S.A. § 1201(c). On July 17, 2000, at his initial appearance, he applied for public defender services. His application form indicates that he was eighteen years old and had had no income in the previous twelve months. It also states that there are five other people in his household: mother, stepfather, grandmother, grandfather, and uncle. Gross income from wages of the cohabitants during the last twelve months was $42,576.00, although these wages appear to be only those of mother and stepfather. Under assets, the form lists three vehicles, two valued at $5,000 and $10,000 respectively, and one on which $2,370 is owing and no net worth is indicated. There are also two bank accounts listed: defendant’s account with $8.23 and the cohabitants’ savings account with $1,071.00. Under monthly expenses, defendant has indicated that he has $162 of expenses per month for automobile insurance, life insurance and motor vehicle loan payment. He lists no other expenses.
The court made no further inquiry. Based on the information in the application, the court found that defendant is a needy person because he does not have sufficient assets or income to retain counsel. Because defendant is needy and is charged with a serious offense, the court ordered assignment of counsel. The court, however, ordered defendant to pay $513.00 — 100% of the average direct cost of representation — for the services of assigned counsel. All of the $513 was designated a reimbursement due within sixty days of the order.
Defendant appealed to this Court, stating “I am 18 years old and I don’t have a job and have no means of being able to pay this money.” He indicates that his mother and stepfather are allowing him to live with them until he gets his diploma, a job and a place of his own. Nonetheless, according to defendant, they do not support him. Upon receiving this notice of appeal, this Court, in a single-justice decision, requested that the Defender General submit a brief addressing the constitutionality of 13 V.S.A. § 5238(b) and A.O. 4, § 5(d), which require, in determining the reimbursement amount, that “income of the applicant’s cohabitating family members shall be deemed to be income of the applicant.” A.O. 4, § 5(d). The Defender General has filed an amicus brief, arguing that the rule violates defendant’s rights under the Due Process Clause and the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
In Fuller v. Oregon, 417 U.S. 40 (1974), the United States Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of an Oregon reimbursement statute that allowed the court to require a convicted defendant to repay the costs for services of appointed counsel. The Oregon statute provided two safeguards: (1) “a court may not order a convicted person to pay these expenses unless he ‘is or will be able to pay them,’ ” and (2) “a convicted person under an obligation to repay ‘may at any time petition the court which sentenced him for remission of the payment of costs *535or of any unpaid portion thereof.’” Fuller, 417 U.S. at 45. Thus, “[defendants with no likelihood of having the means to repay are not put under even a conditional obligation to do so, and those upon whom a conditional obligation is imposed are not subjected to collection procedures until their indigency has ended and no ‘manifest hardship’ will result.” Id. at 46.
The petitioner in Fuller argued that the recoupment statute impinged on his constitutional right to have counsel provided by the state because the knowledge that he might be obligated to repay the state might impel him to decline the services, thus chilling his constitutional right to counsel. The Court disagreed. Noting that the reimbursement provisions in no way affected eligibility for appointed counsel, it held that there was no constitutional requirement that indigent defendants must remain forever immune from any obligation to shoulder the expenses of legal defense even when they become able to pay without hardship. Id. at 53-54. In reaching this decision, the Court emphasized the statute was “tailored to impose an obligation only upon those with a foreseeable ability to meet it, and to enforce that obligation only against those who actually become able to meet it without hardship.” Id. at 54.
In view of Fuller, we hold that, under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, before imposing an obligation to reimburse the state, the court must make a finding that the defendant is or will be able to pay the reimbursement amount ordered within the sixty days provided by statute.* In many cases, it will be evident from the information provided by the defendant on the application form whether the defendant will have the ability to pay. In this case, however, it is not. The application here raises as many questions as it answers. For example, the form indicates that defendant has no income but pays $162 per month for automobile insurance, life insurance and automobile loan payments. Further, the application indicates that defendant has no expenses for food, rent or clothing. Despite the incomplete information, the court did not request a sworn explanation of how defendant survives without income, although the application indicates that it may do so, presumably because the application indicates that defendant lives with his parents.
Although the “income of the applicant’s eohabitating family members shall be deemed to be income of the applicant,” A.O. 4, § 5(d), to meet constitutional muster, the court must make the finding that the defendant is or will be able to pay the repayment amount within the sixty days. We distinguish this case from one in which the applicant is a juvenile, in *536which case, the court may not order the juvenile to pay any part of the costs of representation, see 13 V.S.A. § 5238(g), but may order the parents to repay the state as a necessity for which parents are liable. See In re J.B., 157 Vt. 668, 669, 603 A.2d 368, 369 (1991) (mem.) (single-justice decision). Here, the parents have no legal obligation to support their eighteen-year-old son. Thus, while the court must consider the parents’ income under the statute, it must also make the constitutionally required finding that defendant will be able to repay the reimbursement amount within sixty days. Here, the court failed to do so. Cf. Ex parte Sanders, 612 So. 2d 1199, 1201 (Ala. 1993) (requiring state to pay for indigent defendant’s expert although defendant’s family, without legal obligation to do so, was paying for counsel); State v. Gardner, 626 S.W.2d 721, 724 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1981) (requiring appointment of counsel for indigent defendant although father could have hired attorney because father had no such legal duty).
On appeal, defendant has asserted the additional facts that he does not have a job and is living with his parents until he gets his diploma. His application, however, was filed in July, so it is not apparent that defendant was actually enrolled in school at the time it was filed, and thus, does not explain why he does not have a job. In sum, we must conclude that neither the evidence nor the findings are adequate to determine whether defendant will have the ability to pay the $513 within the sixty days. Thus, we remand for further findings.
We address one final issue. The State has argued that this case should be dismissed because defendant failed to exhaust his remedies before the trial court before bringing this appeal. It points to 13 V.S.A. § 5238(f), which provides:
A person who may be or has been ordered to pay all or part of the cost of representation by co-payment or reimbursement order may at any time petition the court making the order for remission of all of the amount or any part thereof. If it appears to the satisfaction of the court that payment of the amount due will impose manifest hardships on the defendant or the defendant’s immediate family or that circumstances of case disposition and the interests of justice so require, the court may remit all or part of the amount due or modify the method of payment.
Thus, the State contends that, before appealing to this Court, a defendant must move before the trial court for remission of all or part of the reimbursement amount. In general, we agree. In this case, however, we do not.
In upholding the Oregon statute in Fuller, the Court relied upon two statutory safeguards to protect the interests of indigent defendants. One safeguard allowed a defendant to petition the court at any time for remission of the reimbursement amount or any unpaid portion thereof. Fuller, 417 U.S. at 45. That provision is similar to § 5238(f). But the other safeguard required, as a condition necessary for the initial imposition of the reimbursement obligation, is a finding that the defendant is or will be able to pay the reimbursement amount. The Vermont statute has no analogous provision. We conclude, however, that the requirement of the initial finding prior to imposition of any repayment obligation was necessary to the Fuller decision, and thus, we require this finding under the Sixth Amendment.
We will not require defendant to raise the ability-to-pay issue under subsection (f) prior to appealing because his claim is that the court is required to make the ability-to-pay finding before imposing any reimbursement obligation in the first *537instance. Requiring a subsection (f) request before an appeal in this case would impose upon defendant the very procedure that he challenges — and we have agreed — by shifting the burden of raising the issue in the first instance from the court to defendant.

Reversed and remanded.

 Contrary to the dissent’s assertion, we do not hold that a hearing is required to make an independent determination of whether the family members’ income is available to defendant irrespective of whether defendant contests that fact. As noted above, the constitutionally required finding, that defendant is able to pay the reimbursement amount within the 60 days, can ordinarily be made from the information provided by the defendant on the application form. It may be — as dissent speculates — that a cost-benefit analysis will ultimately demonstrate that the resources expended to recoup the cost of representation for defendants similarly situated to the defendant here undermine the program’s reimbursement objective. That speculation is, of course, not relevant to the constitutional requirement that, before imposing an obligation to reimburse the state for the cost of representation, the court must make a finding that the defendant is or will be able to pay the reimbursement amount ordered.