If this slovenliness is what we get from Louisiana’s Public Defender Oversight Board, policy-makers might as well chuck the whole thing.
Earlier this year, State Public Defender Remy Starns declared he wouldn’t renew the contracts of five of the state’s 35 district defenders. Perhaps not coincidentally, the five argued against a pay plan Starns had brought to the board last year that ultimately in the main was not accepted, which would have cut their salaries.
As a result of legislation last year, the Board underwent a name and function change. The changes took it away from an active management role and more towards the word added to its appellation, “oversight.” It did retain the power to oversee finances to the point to have power over financing decisions as under existing contracts.
However, the power to negotiate such contracts shifted to Starns’ office. And after he notified the quintet of his non-renewal decision, its members appealed to the Board claiming they hadn’t been “fired” for legitimate “cause” under statute.
Except, it seems, that Starns saw this coming. Last year, he solicited an attorney general’s opinion over the new law concerning whether, essentially, “non-renewal” equaled “fire.” Republican Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill’s office issued one stating the two weren’t the same, and days later Starns announced his decision.
Nonetheless, the new board – whose membership largely changed with the plurality of members directly or indirectly picked by the governor and others by legislative leaders, the judiciary, and special interest groups – decided it would hear the appeals, claiming in the absence of information it should do so. This came about even though all it needed was to ask one question – were the contracts of the five up by Jun. 30, the effective date Starns had set – and it would have had all the information it needed to decide not to do anything.
Statute is clear that the SPD has the authority over whether to offer and renew contracts and on what terms. And it doesn’t take an AG opinion in reading statute to understand cause is a non sequitur in this instance. So, if the Board is this thick-headed and inept, what’s the point in having one?
Indeed, a third of all states have no such thing. While a third have an independent commission run indigent defense, another third such as Louisiana have a mixed system of board and executive administration, and the remainder have no independent entity involved at all and is overseen by the executive branch. Sparse research on the matter shows outcomes really aren’t shaped by systemic factors but by the level of commitment from government to have enough resources available to put up more than a perfunctory defense of the accused indigent.
Reforms, first in 2007 and then last year, to Louisiana’s indigent defense have gotten rid of some of the problems brought by cronyism and, contrary to critics who don’t appear to understand that the changes last year brought the state’s model closer to others, provide a better structure by which to address problems of under- and overly disparate funding. The reconstituted board either can eschew from gumming up the works – such as through a decision regarding the “firings” that leads to protracted legal action it can’t win – for no good reason in improving the quality of indigent defense in Louisiana, or else maybe the Legislature should consider having the state join a third of its brethren without such a board.
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