Kentucky

The following editorial from the Courier Journal highlights the legal implications of drastic  budget cuts to the state's public defender program.  As previously reported, the budget reduction means fewer lawyers with higher case loads and thus the time to spend on each case is less with a reasonable inference that the quality of justice and representation will drop. 

Budget reductions mean everyone must tighten their belts.  But, some areas are not amenable to belt tightening.

Here is editorial.  Due to its significance, the entire editorial is posted.

Well, a half century ago the Kentucky Supreme Court held that "common justice demands" an attorney be appointed when a person charged with a felony is too poor to hire his own counsel. In the landmark 1963 Gideon V. Wainwright case, the U.S. Supreme Court said that, if a state wants to take away a person's liberty, it has to provide an attorney for those too poor to hire their own.

But the 2008 Kentucky General Assembly threatens to make a lawbreaker out of state government, by appropriating so little money for the Department of Public Advocacy that it will be forced to cut 54 positions.

Robert Ewald, chairman of the Department of Public Advocacy Commission, explained what that could mean: "If somebody is sitting in jail and can't get a speedy trial with competent counsel, they will have to be cut loose, whether they are guilty or not."

A judge also might order the state to pay for an attorney out of the Kentucky Treasury as a "necessary government expense." Or a judge could go find a private attorney who is capable of handling, and willing to accept, such a case for free.

But it shouldn't come to any of that. The legislature should not be a law-breaker, by denying the Department of Public Advocacy the money it needs to meet its legal obligation to represent the poor.

Public Advocate Ernie Lewis has been warning about the money shortage for years, but the Republican Senate simply will not hear of raising more revenue, even with a cigarette tax increase that the general public and health advocates support.

Shame on Senate President David Williams, who is a lawyer and ought to know better. Shame on the Republican senators who enable him to arrogantly wave off all pleas for an adequate revenue system. The lesson they are teaching is that politics trumps justice.