« Courts - More on: Big name lawyers in Helio Castroneves federal tax evasion case | Main | Ind. Decisions - Appeal withdrawn by Terre Haute Tribune-Star in $1.5 million defamation case »
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Ind. Courts - "Monroe County public defender’s office faces allegations"
Andy Graham of the Bloomington Herald-Times has this story ($$) today. Some quotes:
The Monroe County Public Defender’s Office has made a series of mistakes reporting caseloads to the state, but the misstated reports do not mean the office is out of compliance with a state funding program, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Public Defender’s Commission says.Allegations from a worker in the county office about how caseloads have been reported led to four executive sessions by the Monroe County Public Defender Board, which has scheduled another private session for today. That meeting will be followed by a public meeting in which the allegations and the state’s opinion are expected to be discussed.
The executive session, which is not open to the public, is scheduled for 2 p.m. and the public meeting at 2:15 in the Justice Building’s conference room.
The county board might draw its own conclusions or take actions of its own, but it’s clear the state has no problem with the county public defender office.
Deborah Neal, the state commission’s legal counsel, was unequivocal in her comments over the phone Monday morning.
“Monroe County is in compliance and always has been,” Neal said. “If we ever had a problem, it was immediately corrected. We believe they have a well-run system and we’re glad they’re part of the program.”
Since 2001, Monroe County has participated in a program that sends significant state funding flowing into county public defender offices that keep caseloads below a set maximum amount for their attorneys.
The program’s goal is to ensure an adequate number of public defenders who individually have the requisite time and energy to properly serve each indigent client.
Funding from the program helped Monroe County add six public defenders and gradually raised chief public defender Michael Hunt’s salary to about $120,000 to make it commensurate with the county prosecutor’s salary. The Monroe County office got $382,000 in overall state reimbursement funding in 2007, the last year for which updated figures were available.
But continuation of state funding is tied to compliance with prescribed caseload levels and, late in 2006, deputy public defender Jo Hamilton saw her caseload report as sent to the state by office manager Debbie Outcalt and felt 21 major felonies were missing. She and husband J. Ogden Hamilton, executive director of the Bloomington-based international educational honor society Pi Lambda Theta, then checked the reports on file in the office computer system and found more errors in the rolling, quarterly reports. Ogden Hamilton alleges that attempts to call attention to the errors prompted retribution in the office.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 21, 2009 06:23 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts