Public Defender Says Court-appointed Defense Pays Little

COLUMBUS (AP) — The Ohio public defender says qualified lawyers are increasingly cutting back on court-appointed work representing poor defendants, leaving that work to less-experienced attorneys. Providing legal defense to indigent defendants has largely been left to each county in Ohio. Thirty-nine of the state’s 88 counties exclusively appoint private counsel to indigent defense. But some county’s rates for reimbursing those lawyers haven’t changed for decades, The Columbus Dispatch reported (http://bit.ly/1LM9bc1). Ohio Public Defender Timothy Young said that the government has kept the pay low to subsidize the prosecution of their clients. For example, the rate for reimbursing court-appointed lawyers in Licking County is $35 an hour for out-of-court work and $45 for in-court time, up to a maximum reimbursement of $1,000 for a felony case. “When you figure the cost of providing an office and staff, health and retirement benefits, utilities and supplies, we’re working for a lot less than that,” said Kristin Burkett, a partner in a firm that provides most of the county’s indigent defense work. Licking County Commissioner Tim Bubb said the original plan was that the state and counties would split the costs equally.