County Justice Suffers (SB SUN 050806) Lawyer: Public defenders scant on time with clients....

The real problem with shortening the time that the suspect spends with their Public Defense Attorney is going to Increase the Amount of Appeals in this County and this Court System. The County District Attorney needs to make sure that the Public Defender has enough time to prepare for their case and not use time shortages with their clients as a tool to win cases against Criminals. It is not a Fair playing field. I have been in Law Enforcement long Enough to know that you don't want to go back and try a case all over again in the Appeals Court when you could have and should have done it in regular court where they should have been convicted fully for a long stay off the streets. All from the Criminals own actions. Not the lack of action we are giving them. By not allowing the Public Defender enough time with their client.

BSRancher

County justice suffers Lawyer: Public defenders scant on time with clients Jeff Horwitz, Staff Writer

When former Deputy Public Defender Daniel J. Mangan III first met his clients at San Bernardino County Superior Court, that is where it often took place: In a small, run-down room on the fourth floor, split by a partition and crammed with five other attorneys and five other defendants. Although the conversations weren't private and the meeting usually no longer than a few minutes, the encounters were and still are a public defender's first and best chance to gain a client's trust, said Mangan, who worked for the Public Defender's Office for 23 years. "I think that speaks well of the efforts by the public defenders to make the client understand that, while this is a terrible circumstance, we have to make the best of it and represent you," he said. But for a significant number of the office's clients, effort doesn't appear to be enough. At a county budget workshop last month, newly appointed Public Defender Doreen Boxer informed the county Board of Supervisors that, at defendants' requests, judges had stripped her attorneys of their cases on 26 occasions in the eight months preceding her arrival in March. Public defenders are removed under what is called a Marsden motion, and it occurs when a defendant tells a judge that his relationship with his attorney is too poor, rendering a proper defense impossible. "The personality conflicts tend to occur when the attorney has insufficient time to establish a relationship with the client," Boxer told the board. A defendant may make a Marsden motion at any point in his or her legal proceedings, prompting the judge to clear the court except of the public defender and his client. If the defendant justifies why he or she cannot be adequately represented by his or her public defender, the judge can declare the conflict irresolvable and appoint a private defense attorney at public expense. The case then starts from scratch. What went wrong in the 26 cases in which public defenders were removed is confidential. Records of Marsden motions are sealed, and Boxer could not say whether the successful motions were evenly spread among her office's attorneys or if they stem from the work of a few attorneys. Regardless of their immediate cause, Boxer said, there's one root problem: "Judges have been relieving public defenders because they're causing repeated delays that are directly attributable to excessive caseloads," Boxer said. Boxer sees increasing face time with clients as a way to avoid Marsden motions. The quality of the office's attorneys is good, she told the board. "They just do not have time to meet with our clients." Other public defenders' offices confirmed that San Bernardino County's Marsden numbers are high. Twenty-six in eight months, said Bob Kalunian, chief deputy public defender in Los Angeles County, "is symptomatic of a big problem." Kalunian's office handles about 500,000 cases a year, he said, and only "one or two" Marsden motions made by its clients succeed. When one does, he said, it's significant enough that the public defender in question must author a memo for higher-ups to review. A granted Marsden motion isn't necessarily a black mark on an attorney's record, said Tony Heider, Kern County's chief assistant public defender. But his office normally accrues only three or four a year. "We pride ourselves - and I daresay most offices do - on doing the best for their clients," Heider said. "When you see (that number of successful motions), you start to say, 'what's going on' and 'is there something that needs to be corrected?' " Marsden motions, Boxer said, aren't the only cause for concern. Her office does not have enough deputy public defenders to staff arraignments. "We're incapable of communicating with the courts at that stage," Boxer told the board, a shortfall that both clogs the courts and denies clients representation at every stage of their defense. Nor does her office have a Writs and Appeals division, necessary to challenge Marsden grants and other rulings her office might dispute. All told, Boxer has asked for funding for 21 new full-time positions. The county Administrative Office will review the request before issuing a recommendation for the coming year's budget. No supervisor questioned the need for more public defenders at the budget workshop. Mark Kirk, chief of staff for 4th District Supervisor Gary Ovitt, said he noticed the room grow silent as Boxer detailed her office's concerns. Still, it's not unusual for a public defender's office to be starved for resources, and not only in San Bernardino County. "The visceral feeling that the taxpayer has is to fund law enforcement and the District Attorney's Office," Boxer said last week. "They don't always think about the next step - funding the public defender so the system works properly." Even the District Attorney's Office agrees. Although his own office could use more staff, Assistant District Attorney Michael Risley said, more public defenders would be to everyone's benefit. "It is of extreme importance to us that when we obtain a guilty verdict or negotiate a settlement that the defendant receive competent representation," Risley said. If he or she didn't, an appellate court is likely to throw out the conviction and make his office prosecute the case again, Risley said. "We only want to try a case once." Risley said he finds no fault with the county's public defenders. "I think the issue is that there's just not enough of them. They're being spread too thin," Risley said. If county residents knew how the office must do business, "they'd be appalled," Mangan said. "The court, the district attorney and the public defender - to the people, they're all government," he said. "And government doesn't represent itself very well if it's herding people through, it's not being attentive to their needs, and cases are being mishandled or forgotten."