Public defender picks clients, justices rule

A county judge's ruling violated the state's Public Defender Act.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- A county judge's effort to prevent defendants above the poverty line from receiving free legal representation has been overturned by the state Supreme Court, which ruled that authority over such eligibility decisions rests with the local public defender's offices.
Dauphin County President Judge Joseph H. Kleinfelter announced in July that no one above federal poverty guidelines would be represented by the county public defender's office, imposing income limits of $8,980 for individuals and $18,400 for a family of four.
The unanimous Supreme Court decision issued last week said Judge Kleinfelter's ruling violated terms of the state's 35-year-old Public Defender Act, an outgrowth of the 1967 Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention.
Kleinfelter said he acted to save tax dollars after hearing public defenders argue that their clients deserved leniency because they held good, steady jobs.
"If his employment record is so great, then why does he have a free lawyer standing there with him?" Judge Kleinfelter said Tuesday. "I got the impression this public defender's office hasn't met the client they don't like."
Pennsylvania law
But Supreme Court Justice Russell M. Nigro wrote that Pennsylvania law "explicitly provides that if the public defender is 'satisfied' of a person's inability to procure sufficient funds to hire private counsel, it 'shall' provide that person with representation."
Pennsylvania and Utah are the only states that pay none of the cost of indigent defense, although 13 other states pay less than half. In Pennsylvania, county commissioners appoint the public defender and fund the office, except in Philadelphia, where the Defender Association plays a unique role.
Funding is "always a political issue," said Centre County chief public defender David Crowley, who wrote a friend-of-the-court brief in the Dauphin County matter on behalf of the state association of public defenders. "We don't have the advantage prosecutors have of saying, 'We're keeping you safe by putting scumballs away."'
Defends evaluations
George F. Shultz, Dauphin County's chief deputy public defender, said some of the 10,000 applications they receive each year may not be evaluated properly, but insisted that most of the clients they take on truly cannot afford to pay a private attorney's fees.
In many counties, public defender's offices have already willingly ceded authority over the indigent-defendant application process to judges or district justices. Cumberland County chief public defender Taylor P. Andrews said that allows his lawyers to focus on the case itself.
He said worthy defendants do not get turned away.
"My experience has been, when the court makes this decision they tend to be more generous in appointing counsel," Andrews said.
An American Bar Association study released last year said up to half of poor juvenile defendants in Ohio go to court without a lawyer.
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