Most plans to improve criminal defense for poor Michiganders will be OK'd, official says

Local governments now have 30 days to submit a revised request

Justin A. Hinkley
Lansing State Journal
Attorney Patrick Crowley, who often represents indigent defendants in Ingham County, makes a phone call on Friday, Feb. 24, 2017 at the  law firm Crowley, Cornish, Rockafellow, & Sartz in Lansing. County officials are concerned the state may not come through on promised investments in indigent defense systems.

LANSING – With mostly minor fixes and some additional information, most local governments' plans to improve the way they hire defense attorneys for poor people accused of a crime should move forward this year, a state official said Thursday.

The Michigan Indigent Defense Commission has given the green light to only about $6 million out of the nearly $87 million in state dollars counties and other local governments say they need to improve their systems for hiring court-appointed lawyers, according to a list released Wednesday by the commission.

However, for the overwhelming majority of those governments who saw their requests rejected, officials need to make only minor changes to have their requests approved, commission Executive Director Jonathan Sacks said Thursday. Out of more than 100 plans the commission considered in recent weeks, only 18 saw both their reform plans and grant requests rejected. 

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The remainder — including Ingham, Eaton and Cllinton counties — had their overall plans approved but commissioners rejected the accompanying grant request. Requests for money to fund non-indigent defense functions or expensive construction costs without justification were among the more common reasons for rejections, Sacks said.

Local governments whose plans or grant requests were rejected will have 30 days to submit new plans.

The large number of needed changes are likely because this is a brand-new process for Michigan, Sacks said. The reform plans voted on in recent weeks were the first developed since the commission was created in 2013 in response to a report ranking Michigan's indigent defense system among the worst in the nation. Sacks said 

"No one knew what to expect," Sacks said. "This is the first time this has ever happened … It's not an area that funding units have thought about before." 

Ingham County's plan was the most expansive of those from the tri-county area. The county sought nearly $5 million to create a new public defender office, with full-time, salaried attorneys and on-staff investigators. Currently, as in most of Michigan, court-appointed attorneys in Ingham County are hired on a case-by-case basis and paid per court appearance. 

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The commission approved Ingham County's plan, but rejected the accompanying grant request because commissioners wanted more information about some of the items that would be funded, Ingham County Deputy Controller Teri Morton said Wednesday.  

"They were in agreement with the concept of our plan for a public defender's office," Morton said. "I think the bulk of the cost will be approved." 

Eaton County was among eight court-funding units who had their plans rejected because they'd sought money from the Indigent Defense Commission for county prosecutors.  

One of the commission's standards requires defense attorneys to be present at the defendant's first court appearance. That rarely happens now, and prosecutors often don't attend, either. Some counties, therefore, asked the commission to give more money to prosecutors so they could staff those hearings. Commissioners instead passed a policy that no indigent defense funds could go to prosecutors. 

(Watch the video below to see attorneys explain the failings of Michigan's indigent defense system. The story continues below the video)

Eaton County will resubmit its plan without the $37,846 it had sought for its prosecutor, county Controller/Administrator John Fuentes said Wednesday. 

Clinton County Administrator/Controller Ryan Wood said commissioners wanted minor changes and clarifications to his county's plan and they should have no problem resubmitting within the 30-day window.

Even if the commission had approved all of the grant requests, counties statewide would still spend a combined $26 million more on prosecutors than public defenders, who handle the bulk of criminal cases, according to a State Journal analysis of the grant requests and county finance records.  

A State Journal investigation in 2016 found court-appointed attorneys make a fraction of what they can make in private practice and rarely file motions, hire independent investigators or take cases to trial to challenge the case against their clients.  

Contact Justin A. Hinkley at (517) 377-1195 or jhinkley@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley. Sign up for his email newsletter, SoM Weekly, at on.lsj.com/somsignup