Florida High Court to consider public defender dispute - Do poor people have a right to "Effective" Counsel?

From [HERE] The Florida Supreme Court was asked Thursday to decide whether poor defendants' rights are violated when overburdened public defenders can't afford to hire enough lawyers and aren't allowed to shed some of their cases.

The appeal could expand on a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision 49 years ago in another Florida case that said states must provide lawyers for impoverished criminal defendants. It also could add to growing tension between the Florida justices and the budget-cutting Republican-led Legislature.

The U.S. Supreme in 1963 ordered a new trial for Clarence Earl Gideon because a judge denied his request for a court-appointed lawyer before he was convicted of breaking into a Panama City pool room and stealing $65 from vending machine as well as some soft drinks, beer and wine. Upon retrial, Gideon was acquitted - with help from a lawyer.

The Gideon v. Wainwright opinion said the Sixth Amendment guarantee of legal representation applied to states as well as the federal government. It led to the creation of public defender systems across the nation.

But public defenders say they face unreasonable burdens that can render that guarantee meaningless.

"There is no meaning to the right to counsel under the Gideon decision if public defenders are required to take as many clients as they're assigned without any limitation, without any review by the court whether that representation is actually effective and it's competent," said 11th Circuit Public Defender Carlos Martinez of Miami.

The justices heard a pair of consolidated cases involving Martinez's office, but he said their decision would affect other public defenders around the state whose budgets also have been cut. The justices did not indicate when they would rule.

In both cases, the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Miami rejected decisions by trial judges designed to lighten the public defender's load.

Circuit Judge Stanford Blake in 2008 agreed to let the public defender temporarily turn down relatively minor 3rd degree felony cases such as auto theft, forgery and robbery.

Those cases, instead, would have been assigned a regional state legal office created to handle cases in which public defenders have conflicts such as representing two defendants charged with committing the same crime.

Prosecutors challenged Blake's plan, and the appellate court prevented it from going into effect.

In 2010, the appellate court also reversed a decision by Circuit Judge John Thornton to let Assistant Public Defender Jay Kolsky withdraw from the case of Antoine Bowens, who was charged with selling cocaine near a school. Thornton found Kolsky's excessive workload - 971 felony cases the previous year - prevented him from competently and effectively representing his client. Bowens' case, instead, was delayed for about two years. It's set for trial next week.

Chief Deputy Solicitor General Louis Hubener argued the appellate decisions should be upheld because the Legislature passed a law in 2007 prohibiting public defenders from withdrawing from cases based on "conflicts arising from underfunding, excessive caseload or the prospective inability to adequately represent a client."

Justice R. Fred Lewis, though, called that a "fringe issue" and said the high court must focus on assuring compliance with the Sixth Amendment.

"This is not a legislative mandate, it's a constitutional mandate," Lewis said. "We don't send third-graders in to defend."

Hubener acknowledged that but argued public defenders should be required to show the right to representation is being violated on a case-by-case basis, not the blanket solution Blake approved.

Justice Barbara Pariente said the requests by the public defender's office were "the responsible thing."

Hubener then argued that courts should investigate management decisions within the public defender's office before making such determinations, but Justice Peggy Quince said that sounded like "micromanaging."

Martinez's lawyer, Parker Thomson, said it's not the courts' job to manage a public defender's office but that issue would be fair game for a challenger at the next election.

Thomson argued that the Supreme Court already has dealt with the issue of competent representation in prior opinions.

"This court said when you can't represent a person, get out," he said.

The case is Public Defender, 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida v. State of Florida, et al., SC09-1181; SC10-1349