January 2008 In the News
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Collin County commissioners pride themselves on saving money. The latest example involves indigent defense spending. Commissioners recently learned the county spent $800,000 less on lawyers for the poor last year than in 2006. Expendi- tures dropped about 15 percent to $4 million, even though the number of cases rose 2.7 percent. Why has spending dropped? Commissioners say the poor aren't denied free representation. Instead, officials are more carefully screening defendants who claim to be indigent.
Best defense money can buy? 1/13/2008 (New Hampshire)
CONCORD MONITOR: Millionaire John "Jay" Brooks, who is incarcerated and awaiting trial on death-penalty charges, accused of hiring men to kidnap and kill someone, has put his personal fortune to use in his criminal case. He donated microwaves to his county jail and offered $15,000 for an inmate education program. He's paid other inmates to clean his cell and deliver his meals, prosecutors say. But Brooks has distinguished his death penalty case from most by hiring his own five-person defense team.
State to pay wrongly convicted man $3.5M; 1/12/2008 (Montana)
BILLINGS GAZETTE: Former Billings resident Jimmy Bromgard, who spent more than 15 years in prison for a child rape he did not commit, on Friday settled for $3.5 million his lawsuit against the state of Montana. The settlement is the largest amount the state has ever paid for a civil-rights violation, said Bromgard's attorney, Ron Waterman of Helena. "Indeed, it is the most the state has ever paid to any individual for its misconduct except in cases in which the victim of the state's misconduct died," Waterman said.
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS: For the past five years, nearly 900 cases involving indigent defendants in Arkansas criminal courts have been handled by private attorneys at a cost of almost $ 2. 4 million, according to records of the state Public Defender Commission. Supporters of the practice say private lawyers are sometimes necessary to avoid potential conflicts when co-defendants can’t all be represented by the public defender. As a result, almost 150 private lawyers have been assigned since January 2003 to defend indigent clients in Arkansas. Today’s method of assigning private lawyers is a break from how the state used to do it.