Talk:Pro se legal representation in the United States/Kay Sieverding case law 5

MIAMI — Throwing further confusion into the issue of who pays for legal representation of indigents in Florida, a Miami-Dade judge has ruled that the public defender's office is overburdened, and private attorneys will have to represent indigents charged with third-degree felonies.

Wednesday's ruling by Judge Stanford Blake is a victory for the Miami-Dade Public Defender's Office, which had filed a motion in June asking permission to refuse appointments to felony cases because it was underfunded by the Florida Legislature. Florida v. Loveridge, No. 08-1 (Miami-Dade Co., Fla., Cir. Ct. 2008).

Facing massive property tax losses, the Legislature passed a budget that included a $1.2 billion shortfall last year. State courts have called the shortfall and court cuts catastrophic.

The issue has pitted public defender's offices around the state against the Legislature. Other public defenders have said they would file similar motions in the coming months.

In his ruling, Blake said that the Miami public defender's office's caseload "far exceeds any recognized standard for the maximum number of felony cases a criminal defense attorney should handle annually."

"More importantly," he stated, "the evidence shows that the number of active cases is so high that the assistant public defenders are, at best, providing minimal competent representation to the accused."

The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office had opposed the public defender office's motion, stating that the office should stop representing misdemeanor clients to save resources. The public defender has argued that such a move would result in closing the county court division and depriving new prosecutors a training ground.

The State Attorney's Office also criticized the public defender's "method for airing its grievances with the legislature and not sitting down and working things out," according to the ruling. Blake defended the public defender, saying the record is replete with letters from the public defender to the legislature complaining of its "excessive workload history."

Blake ordered the Office of Criminal Conflict and Regional Civil Counsel ­— the private conflict counsel ­— to start accepting all third-degree felonies as of Sept. 15.

But that office only has 45 attorneys signed up to take the cases, which pay $750 each. There are an estimated 12,000 third-degree felony cases in Miami a year that make it to court.

"We're going to obey the order to the best of our abilities," said Joseph George, regional counsel for Florida's third region. "We're still evaluating what the order means and how it will impact us. It does put some pressure on the office to comply with the time frame."

But Public Defender Bennett Brummer said what would actually happen is judges will have to assign individual private attorneys to cases on a "wheel" basis, or by random assignment. Some 150 Miami-Dade lawyers have signed up to take the wheel cases.

Rick Freedman, president of the Miami chapter of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said there are sufficient private lawyers to handle the new cases. He applauded Blake's ruling.

"Judge Blake correctly ruled today in favor of the public defender's office," he said. "The evidence was clear that they have excessive caseloads by any reasonable standard. They cannot effectively represent their clients without an immediate decrease in that caseload."

The ruling will result in the state of Florida paying three times more for legal representation for third-degree felonies in Miami-Dade, said Brummer.

"We were very pleased with the ruling and feel vindicated," he said. "Our critics were wrong. This shows that there are funds as long as the Legislature can intimidate the public defender's office. They pushed too far."

The State Attorney's Office, however, plans to appeal Blake's ruling.

"We disagree fundamentally with the Court that we do not have standing," said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle in a statement.

"This is a political matter that should have stayed in the political system.

This lawsuit was not the proper resolution. No one should create a constitutional crisis that jeopardizes the integrity of our criminal justice system."