HAVE YOU EVER HEARD SOMEONE SAY THEY WERE WRONGLY CONVICTED BECAUSE THEY HAD A COURT-APPOINTED LAWYER? Oftentimes I hear negative comments about court-appointed attorneys and while every profession has their bad-apples, I know many very good attorneys who take court-appointed cases. I, myself, have represented indigent clients that I have been appointed to. I am proud to say that I handle every case the same, whether appointed or represented. I investigate every case and will not lower my standards for any price. That being said, Michigan does have a poorly operated indigent defense system. For example, each court runs its court-appointed program on its own. Within Kent County some courts pay appointed lawyers $50 to $55 per hour with a $250 maximum for misdemeanor cases. Another court in the same county pays their appointed lawyers a flat $140 fee for each case regardless of how much work is involved. The argument that has been made is that a flat $140 fee (which is less than many attorneys normally charge per hour) may encourage a lawyer to want to convince a client to take the first plea offer made. It may also lead to insufficient or non-existent investigations on behalf of the defendant. Other problems include the amount of cases assigned to each attorney and the experience of the attorneys. Finally Michigan is on the path to improving the indigent defense system in the hopes of providing a fair playing field for all defendants – regardless of recourses. Attached is a link to show some of the progress: mlive/politics/index.ssf/2013/06/indigent_defense_michigan_look.html#incart_river_default
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:10:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015