LV may no longer use public defenders

Diana Sahagun

Monday, April 22, 2002 | 11:13 a.m.

In an effort to save money, Las Vegas is considering ending its more than 20-year relationship with the Clark County public defender's office, opting to look for private attorneys to represent poor clients.

Municipal Court officials think they can cut the budget for indigent defense in half by using private lawyers, but others are raising questions about the the quality of services versus the bottom line.

"I don't believe that cost should ever be the determining factor when it comes to indigent defense," said Clark County Public Defender Marcus Cooper, whose attorneys would be replaced under the plan.

"The quality of the representation should be the No. 1 factor, and that's my philosophy. I'm convinced that the clients in Municipal Court do receive quality representation from the people that we have there."

Court officials have requested applications from local attorneys or firms interested in doing misdemeanor defense work for the city. By July court officials expect to decide on the candidates.

James Carmany, Las Vegas Municipal Court administrator, said the court's six judges are satisfied with the work done by the defender's office, but the services have become increasingly expensive. Had the contract been extended for the 2003 fiscal year, which begins July 1, the city would have paid the defender's office $864,000, he said.

Carmany said the court could save roughly $400,000 a year by privatizing the services.

Municipal Court isn't the first city department to look at cost-saving measures. As revenue streams have started to dry up, city staff positions have been cut and park projects phased out to save money. The city's 2003 fiscal year budget shows a $1 million deficit.

The city has contracted with the defender's office since 1979 to represent indigent clients.

Whoever is chosen by the city will face a high caseload, Cooper said.

Last year Cooper's deputy defenders started with 5,132 pending cases in Municipal Court and picked up an additional 19,600 throughout the year. By the end of the year, the department had closed 18,500 of those cases.

Cooper said if the city proceeds with the new plan the deputy defenders would be reassigned, possibly to the main county office. The defender's office also has contracts with Henderson, North Las Vegas and outlying areas.

The decision might even be a blessing in disguise, Cooper said. His office is swamped with cases and has been criticized for not taking enough cases to trial.

"The more attorneys we have here, I think, the better," he said. "We could certainly use the attorneys here in our main office. I could put them all to work today if they were here."

Allen Lichtenstein, legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said there are questions over whether private attorneys would give better representation than a public defender.

"A private attorney still has to worry about overhead, and the public defender's office doesn't -- the overhead is already paid for," Lichtenstein said. "One of the concerns might be if someone who's contracting with the city to supplement their income, will (the indigent clients) be sort of lower down on the priority list than clients who are paying more."

He also questioned whether the private attorneys would be able to handle the workload if the city's budget is halved.

"When they're talking about cutting their budget in half, it's hard to see how that won't affect services," he said.