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Sep 24, 2006 12:47 pm US/Central
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Rising Legal Costs Means Justice Denied
For many, the 'best defense money can buy' is at the public defender's office
St. Paul (AP) ―
The rising cost of legal counsel seems to be driving more working people to use public defenders in at least one Minnesota county, leaving some court officials concerned the service will be less available to truly needy indigent defendants.
A Dakota County survey of attorney's fees reported by the St. Paul
Pioneer Press found prices all over the map, with one common thread: Private counsel is costly.
"Then there's the public defender system, which is extremely cheap," said Mary Wingfield, who has spent 17 years as a public defender in Ramsey and Dakota counties. "And there's nothing in between."
Defendants with clean records facing a charge like drunken driving can find a lawyer to handle their case for as little as $1,000. But for a lawyer with a more solid reputation, it's more likely to cost $2,500. A guaranteed heavy hitter will run closer to $5,500, while the best defense money can buy starts around $8,000 -- and rises quick, depending on the seriousness of the charge.
With more middle-income people turning to public defenders, court clerks in Dakota County recently started to screen property records and credit histories to see if defendants make too much money to qualify. Court officials created a sliding scale that has most low-income clients paying $50 to $700.
Some lawyers are worried that will leave the working poor out in the cold, given the cost of private counsel.
"There's a large group of people that are going to end up going unrepresented," said Suzanne Flinsch, who recently retired after 13 years as a public defender in Dakota County.
The cost of legal defense has risen as investigations grow more sophisticated, with the availability of technologies like DNA testing, said David Carroll, research director the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.
Rising legal costs have prompted people with incomes above the poverty level to represent themselves in court.
"Having to go without counsel doesn't increase efficiency of the court system," Carroll said. "The process just becomes much more sluggish when you have more and more people trying to represent themselves."
Others defend the screenings, saying too many wealthy and middle-income defendants are using public defenders, cheating taxpayers and drawing resources away from those who truly can't afford a private lawyer.
It's also a burden on already-overworked public defenders, who are handling double the caseload that's seen as acceptable by the American Bar Association, according to state figures. Part-time public defenders last year donated 36,000 unpaid hours.
Jeffrey Sheridan, an Eagan-based defense attorney, admitted that the cost of private counsel is growing, especially for felonies. But he still questions whether Dakota County's sliding-fee scale is appropriate.
"My knee-jerk reaction is that it's probably unconstitutional," said Sheridan, who worked as a part-time public defender for 10 years in Dakota County. "The whole point of a free lawyer is that it's a free lawyer. For some people, $70 is as much as $700."
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)