Kentucky

Here's a story from the Herald Leader which I am posting en toto due to its importance to the legal community regarding the results of the budget cuts to the court system should they be passed:

Public advocate warns of cuts

Public defenders will withdraw from some misdemeanor cases, probation and parole violations and truancy cases if the House budget becomes law, the state's chief public defender said Friday.

Public Advocate Ernie Lewis mailed a letter to the state's judges this week warning of a budget "train wreck" next fiscal year, which begins in July, if the General Assembly passes a $1 million cut to the Department of Public Advocacy's $40 million budget.

The letter was released to the media late Friday afternoon.

The budget will not necessarily lead to layoffs because of personnel attrition, Lewis said, but it will prevent DPA from hiring staff and lawyers for 50 positions. Many of those positions are currently vacant.

The DPA represents 148,000 defendants a year and the average public defender had 436 new cases last fiscal year. Because of growing caseloads, lawyers only have time to spend an average of four hours on each case, Lewis said.