Court creates new public defenders office

Apr. 24—The judicial district spanning the seven western counties has created a new in-house team of public defenders to represent criminals unable to afford their own lawyer.

Instead of judges appointing private attorneys to represent those who can't afford counsel, there will be a fully staffed public defender's office to draw on.

The change should speed up court cases because the pool of attorneys willing to work at the state pay rate was dwindling, said Hunter Plemmons, Haywood County Clerk of Court.

Cases often had to be continued when attorneys were juggling multiple clients in multiple counties.

"They had to go this route to get people appointed to cases," Plemmons said.

Western North Carolina has been viewed as a "legal desert" in the state, said Janna Allison, chief of the new public defender's office for the district. The state budget included funding for new public defender offices in eight of the judicial districts in the state, including the one covering the seven western counties.

"Cases will be able to move along more quickly with additional attorneys," Allison said. "With different courts held on different days, sometimes an attorney might have to be in four different courts in a day."

Allison was appointed chief public defender for the district in January after receiving an overwhelming vote of attorneys in the seven-county district with the N.C. Bar Association. On April 1, five new assistant public defenders took their oaths of office, and more will soon be appointed. The office began handling cases on April 2.

The current staff is crowded into a small office in the Haywood County Justice Center and will work primarily in Haywood and Jackson counties after more attorneys are hired to serve the other five counties in the district, Allison said. The 43rd Judicial District covers Haywood, Jackson, Macon, Swain, Cherokee, Clay and Graham counties.

State law requires counties to provide office space and furniture for the public defender staff, just as they do for the district attorney's prosecutorial staff.

In Haywood, Allison has arranged to lease office space in the Telco Community Credit Union (formerly BB&T building) just one block from the courthouse on Main Street. The commissioners passed a budget amendment Monday to cover the cost of furniture and supplies for the office.

Most of the district's other counties have space in their courthouses for the public defender offices, Allison said.

How it will work

Under the new system, there will be a pool of attorneys Allison can assign to cases across the district. Those working in the public defender's office are state employees who are paid on par with prosecutors in the district attorney's offices, earning a set monthly salary, along with state benefits.

She has selected attorneys who had differing areas of expertise in private practice or ones who have had a heart for the indigent.

"All of them have experience in criminal defense except for one," Allison said. "A common thread for the one without is her experience helping the poor through Pisgah Legal (Services)."

Because of specialized training offered through the state for public defenders, and because a team of attorneys will able to collaborate on cases, the quality of representation for the indigent will go up, she added.

That's not to say private attorneys still won't be called on to take certain court cases where there is a conflict or in other specialized cases, she said.

Favorable reaction

Plemmons believes having a public defender's office will be an improvement.

"There will no longer be a shortage of attorneys to take (indigent) cases," he said. "Now there will be attorneys whose whole job is to focus on this. Before, private attorneys were working three to four cases in several different counties and had to juggle their calendars, which slowed things down."

Plemmons said complaints about the current system mostly come from victims, who come to court multiple times only to see their cases continued until a later date.

They want a resolution of these cases," he said.

District Attorney Ashley Welch agreed.

"We are considered one of the legal deserts because of a lack of attorneys," she said. "That's how they determined which areas needed a public defender's office."

The change will allow individuals greater access to speedier justice and will provide equal funding offices for both the prosecution and defense roles in the state court system, Welch said.

"A public defender's office where there is a team of officers working together is incredibly valuable," she said. "I was pushing this for some time. I thought it was very much needed and am grateful our representatives in Raleigh agreed and saw the need. Janna is a really good leader, and I'm glad she's there."

The district attorney's office is home to the elected district attorney, (Welch), 16 assistant district attorneys, 15 legal assistant positions and a detective.

Once the public defender's office is fully staffed, there will be 14 attorneys, three legal assistants, a social worker and two investigators fully committed to providing a defense for those in the 43rd Judicial District, Allison said.

"'Innocent until proven guilty' is not just a saying," she said.