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NM center on law and povert |
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Sunday,
February 17, 2008 Public
Defender Commission Could Bolster Fairness By
D'Val Westphal Of the
Journal It's the
one piece of legislation that made it out of the
2008 legislative
session that may help ensure poor New Mexicans accused of crimes get a
fair
shot at an adequate defense. House Bill
193, which creates a Public Defender
Commission, made it
through the Senate with just hours left in the session. A version of
the plan
died in the Senate last year, perhaps in part because much of the
debate
focused on the state funding stream— how little public defenders are
allocated
vs. how much prosecutors get ($36.7 million vs. $55.4 million in fiscal
'07).
And while the dollar figures were shocking, a lot of people were
waiting to see
a three-year report put together by the state Supreme Court's criminal
justice
task force breaking down who gets what and who needs what. That
report, delivered in July, took the three branches of
the judicial
system— defense, prosecution and judicial— and via a complex formula
showed all
were trying to shove 10 pounds of justice through a five-pound tube. It
recommended 35 more judges and 69 more prosecution employees. And it
made it
clear the defense was getting the shortest end of the financing stick,
needing
86 more employees to adequately represent Enter HB
193, now complete with hard stats from an
unbiased source. Sponsored
again by Rep. Al Park, D-Albuquerque, the bill
emphasizes the
need to move the Public Defender Department out from under the
Governor's
Office and make it an adjunct agency answering to a new 11-member
commission. He
says common sense argues the chief public defender is unlikely to go
against
his boss and ask for more cash. And that means the movie version of
court— when
the defendant meets his/her harried public defender minutes before
going before
a judge and jumps at any plea deal to get out of jail to go home to
family and
job— is all too often the reality. The Public
Defender Department stands against the bill—
not surprising;
officials there know which side their bread is currently buttered on—
and says
funding has already grown under the current system, the new system
doesn't
guarantee more, and the commission will create confusion and add a
layer of
bureaucracy. But the
bill has pages and pages of wording that make it
clear the chief
public defender runs the department, not the commission. And instead of
answering to a political animal, the department would report to a group
of
diverse but legally experienced people appointed by the governor, chief
justice
of the Supreme Court, dean of the And that's
11 more lobbyists for the needs of the
department. Former He
had to borrow one and make a mad dash for the Senate floor to catch the
final
vote. Now the plan depends on Gov. Bill Richardson, who opposed it last
year.
He's got fewer than 20 days to approve it. "We're
hopeful the governor takes
some time, gives it some considered thought," Robinson says. "It's
the right thing to do; it doesn't cost him anything." And it
could pay off big when it comes to equalizing the
scales of
justice. URL:http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/westphal/286074opinion02-17-08.htm All
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Albuquerque Journal |