Greenwald

Greenwald

Move is due to public defender staffing shortage

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Luzerne County’s Court of Common Pleas is taking action to ensure indigent residents charged with misdemeanors have required legal representation.

County Chief Public Defender Steven Greenwald said in September he had to make a painful decision to stop providing representation for nonincarcerated, income-eligible individuals charged with misdemeanors due to significant staff attorney vacancies in his office.

The office continues to provide defense for indigent citizens charged with felonies and also inmates facing misdemeanors.

County Court of Common Pleas President Judge Michael T. Vough said the situation cannot be ignored because the county is legally required to provide representation to indigent people charged with misdemeanors.

“We need to do something because obviously a lot of people are not represented and in our system without attorneys,” Vough said.

In a meeting involving court representatives and Greenwald, the court agreed to seek outside attorneys willing to take these cases, Vough said.

Vough said the public defender’s office can’t hire contracted lawyers, but it has the money available to fund them due to vacancies.

Tuesday’s county council work session agenda includes discussion on Greenwald’s proposal to transfer $42,000 in unused salary funds from his budget to the county court so it can secure legal defense for impacted residents.

Once the transfer is executed, the court would hire four contract attorneys paid $3,500 per month to represent the indigent, Vough said. He wants to limit the attorney contracts to three months and then work with Greenwald to assess whether his office is better situated to restore representation after that period.

Greenwald has cited compensation as a main reason for recruitment and retention issues.

Earlier this month, he said eight of 28 attorney positions are open in his office, and five or six left in the last six months due to the compensation. The starting pay for attorneys in his office is $51,083 for full-timers and $34,165 for part-timers.

“Quite frankly, I think if this continues for another six to 12 months, my office is going to collapse. It’s as simple as that,” Greenwald said earlier this month.

Assistant public defenders and district attorneys are unionized, and their collective bargaining agreement expires the end of this year.

Vough said the public defender’s office agreed to represent misdemeanor offenders at the preliminary hearing stage, which means the contract attorneys will be focused on representation for adjudication at the county Court of Common Pleas level.

The president judge is hopeful he will find attorneys willing to handle the short-term assignment, urging anyone interested to contact him at his chambers.

To be eligible, the contracted attorneys cannot have a recent affiliation with the county public defender’s or conflict counsel offices, he said.

Vough said the public defender’s office has continued accepting applications for representation and then informing applicants it does not have enough staff to represent them.

Greenwald had encouraged income-eligible residents charged with misdemeanors to fill out applications seeking representation from his office because he wanted to track the new policy’s impact and maintain contact in case the policy changes.

In his budget transfer request for Tuesday’s work session, Greenwald said council rejection of the transfer would result in approximately 200 to 300 people unable to obtain representation in criminal cases so they can be “disposed of in a timely and appropriate manner.”

The budget transfer is an ordinance, which means council would have to vote to introduce it at a future meeting and then hold a public hearing and final vote at a subsequent session.

Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.