Editorial: Truth, justice, and … funding

Friday, July 2, 2004 | 8:21 a.m.

Most television shows featuring courtroom dramas project false images about the quality of justice in this country. Typically the shows focus on one case and the defense attorney is shown going to great lengths to save his client. The image is that of defendants who are the sole focus of their attorneys, who in turn have a full staff of investigative assistants to help with the legwork. In some cases involving private attorneys the image may approach reality. This is not the case with poor people, however, who must rely on the public defender's office.

In Clark County, the 80 attorneys on the staff of Public Defender Phil Kohn are each handling, on average, 350 cases a year. How much time does this leave them for interviewing their clients, rounding up witnesses and reading police reports and mounds of other documents relating to their cases? Can clients whose attorneys are so overloaded really be receiving justice? Kohn, in talking this week with the Sun about his understaffed and underfunded office, said he would like to see the caseload for his staff attorneys drop to 250 a year.

This modest request -- 250 cases a year is still too many -- should be taken seriously by the Clark County Commission. The gravity of the situation was brought home this week with the news that a man convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982 settled a lawsuit against Clark County for $5 million. The man, who was represented by an inexperienced Clark County public defender, was released on appeal after spending 14 years in prison for a crime he said he didn't commit. His lawsuit, filed in 1998, blamed incompetent defense for his ordeal. Under new management now, the public defender's office has made administrative changes, including assigning only experienced attorneys to murder cases.

But administrative changes aren't nearly enough to guard against the human and financial toll exacted by inadequate legal defense. The reality is that the public defender's office must be staffed proportionate to its caseload. A 2003 study of the office determined that understaffing had reached a crisis level, and Clark County responded with 10 new positions. This pace of hiring must continue until those caseload numbers come down, way down.