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Prosecutors dispute public defenders' claims of being overworkedby Jim Salter, The Associated Press
Related Content"The annual Public Defender push for more taxpayer money, along with the announcement to refuse new cases until August 1, 2010 in Greene, Christian and Taney counties, has caused serious concern with Missouri Prosecutors," said a news release from the association. “The actions of the Public Defenders are reckless, self interested and irresponsible,” said Dean Dankelson, president of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (MAPA) and Jasper County prosecuting attorney. “They are attempting to hold the entire criminal justice system hostage by demanding more money when they know Missouri’s budget is strapped to the max, and that’s just wrong.” Cat Kelly, deputy director of the Missouri Public Defender System, said Thursday that St. Louis County is on notice because public defenders are overworked and underfunded. The system claims its St. Louis County office is working at 160 percent capacity. 's just too many cases," Kelly said. "We need either more people or fewer cases, and actually, a combination of the two is probably needed. If you pulled out all the misdemeanor cases, we'd still be overloaded." St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch disagrees. "First, they're trying to get more money out of the state," McCulloch said. "They're trying to get less work for themselves. And what they're really trying to do is slow the system to a crawl" to help delay clients from going to jail. Missouri public defenders represent clients who can't afford private attorneys and face state charges that could carry jail time. Officials have warned for years that the system is overburdened. Kelly said the public defender system is in crisis around the state as criminal case workloads continue to increase. The state has 370 public defenders. Kelly said another 177 are needed. McCulloch formally asked Gov. Jay Nixon and state Auditor Susan Montee on Thursday for a performance audit of the public defender system. Kelly says the system is in crisis across the state. Besides the two offices that have already stopped taking new clients for the rest of the month, 14 others, like St. Louis County, are on notice. What happens if the public defender system stops taking new clients is uncertain. In Greene County, at least two judges this week each assigned a defendant to be represented by a public defender, despite the office in Springfield saying it would not take any new clients until next month, and wouldn't go back and pick up cases that arose in the last week of July. Kelly said the courts could delay criminal cases until an attorney can be assigned. She said that makes the problem progressively worse and forces the office to stop taking new cases earlier each month. Kelly added people could spend more time in jail while waiting to be assigned a public defender, though it is possible that the courts could use other methods to resolve the cases. Lawmakers last year approved a bill to let the Public Defender Commission set up maximum caseload standards and establish waiting lists to be assigned a lawyer. The bill also would have allowed trials to proceed for misdemeanor offenses without a public defender if prosecutors did not pursue any jail time. Nixon vetoed the bill, saying it could have shifted more work to courts and prosecutors and burdened defendants and crime victims. A study in 2009 by the Spangenberg Group and the Center for Justice, Law and Society at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., said Missouri's public defender system has "an overwhelming caseload crisis" that has pushed the criminal justice system "to the brink of collapse." McCulloch said the crisis is "made up" because the public defender system has set its own "arbitrary" limits on workload.
"You represent a client when that client needs you," he said, "not when you feel you've got the time."
KY3 News contributed to this report. Most Viewed
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