Reforming the justice system

By James A. Funt

Mingo Stroeber,

and Janice Sulman

In his inaugural speech, Mayor Kenney committed to reforms of the city's criminal justice system and to working with local businesses to help former inmates become productive members of our workforce. He also promised to address pretrial bail issues so that fewer people would be unnecessarily warehoused in our local prisons simply because they are unable to post bail.

We applaud these long-overdue advances designed to promote fairness in the system while significantly reducing the cost to taxpayers. But his efforts should not end there.

In addition, we urge the mayor to take up the cause of court-appointed attorneys. These lawyers represent thousands of indigent clients in criminal, juvenile, and dependency cases when they cannot afford representation and when the public defender's office is unable to accept representation due to a conflict of interest.

If the mayor is as serious about criminal justice reform as he appears to be, the city must do everything it can to encourage and promote quality representation to our most vulnerable citizens. It must, therefore, finally address the paltry fees that these professionals are paid.

Last year, led by former Councilman Denny O'Brien, City Council commissioned a study of the court-appointment system through the national Sixth Amendment Center. The study was highly critical of the current fee structure, noting that Philadelphia, a first-class city, paid lawyers less than those practicing in Tupelo, Miss., a system so deficient as to make a mockery of the concept of equal justice under the law.

Indeed, except in homicide cases, no meaningful increase in court-appointed counsel fees has occurred since the 1990s - including simple cost-of-living increases - and Pennsylvania is one of only a few states that does not provide statewide funding for indigent counsel. As a result, we are losing talented and passionate advocates and our citizens are suffering.

Equal access to justice means that the most vulnerable among us are entitled to competent counsel and that those attorneys should be adequately paid for services rendered.

For many years, court-appointed attorneys, on whom the system depends, as well as the expert witnesses and investigators who are hired to assist with their cases, have not been paid in a timely manner or fairly compensated. Indeed, it is not unusual for payments to these hardworking professionals to be delayed for six months or more.

Most of the attorneys who agree to accept court appointments are highly qualified and experienced lawyers who operate small practices on tight budgets. Their practices are simply not sustainable if a large part of their receivables are continually significantly delayed. This systemic problem has forced many in this dedicated group, several of whom are women and minorities, to resign from accepting court appointments altogether.

The resulting disruption in legal services has created a significant ripple effect, causing undue delays in the processing of cases and leaving adults trapped needlessly in jail and juveniles in detention. In dependency cases, parents are denied access to their children. This fractured system places a financial strain of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on an already burdened city. For example, holding an adult defendant accused of a crime for an avoidable 30-day court delay costs city taxpayers more than $4,000.

To rectify these problems, past-due payments owed to attorneys who diligently represent their clients should be satisfied immediately. Moreover, we urge the Kenney administration to examine ways to update the payment process to ensure, moving forward, that these zealous advocates are compensated promptly and fairly, as recommended by the Sixth Amendment study. If we do, we may finally provide the justice that our most vulnerable citizens deserve at a significant savings to taxpayers.

James A. Funt is a partner with Greenblatt, Pierce, Engle, Funt, & Flores in Philadelphia and a former chair of the criminal justice section of the Philadelphia Bar Association. james@gpeff.com

Mingo Stroeber is vice chair of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. mingo.stroeber@verizon.net

Janice Sulman is the chair of the Dependency Court Committee for the Philadelphia Bar Association. jansulman@hotmail.com