|
|
||
Legislature gives help to indigent defenders Date published: 3/12/2007
By CHELYEN DAVIS
RICHMOND --Attorneys who do indigent-defense work are lauding additional funding given to the system by the governor and legislature in the just-ended session.The General Assembly budgeted $8 million in additional money for court-appointed attorneys, who in Virginia are the lowest-paid in the nation. It's not a lot of money, but the legislature also passed a bill allowing judges to waive the caps on fees paid to court-appointed attorneys, which is being heralded as a big improvement. There's also a provision to collect information from lawyers on how many hours they really work on court-appointed cases, so there will be data to help determine how much money the system needs in the future. These are critical improvements to the court-appointed side of Virginia's indigent-defense system, said Betsy Edwards of the Virginia Fair Trial Project. "It's a big public policy decision that we think is fantastic," Edwards said. "We're very excited about what's happened in this session. It's a great step in the right direction." In Virginia, attorneys who accept indigent cases are paid $90 an hour by the state, but the state also limits the number of hours they are paid for--less than two hours for low-end misdemeanors, even though it can take numerous hours to adequately investigate and prepare a defense for even a misdemeanor. Those hourly limits mean that a lawyer defending a misdemeanor really gets about $120 total, regardless of how complex it might turn out to be. Lawyers might have to make multiple court appearances and need time to interview witnesses and their own clients--things that will take far more than the hour and a half they're being paid for. Even court-appointed lawyers defending people on serious felony charges--which could get the defendant 20 years to life in prison--get only a little over $1,000. Only capital cases, those that could result in the death penalty, have no cap on fees. Lawyers have long decried those caps, saying that attorneys who take court-appointed cases lose money and indigent defendants don't always get the best representation that way. Adding $8 million to the pot of money--currently at $58 million--that pays those fees isn't a lot, Edwards said, but it is the most the legislature has given to court-appointed attorneys in years. Gov. Tim Kaine has proposed giving $9 million; the $8 million figure was the legislature's compromise.
Date published: 3/12/2007
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
|
|
||||||||||||||
