The cost of providing court-appointed personal injury lawyers is adding up for Pulaski County. The county council Monday approved an additional appropriation of $15,000 for Pauper Council in Superior Court and $30,000 for Pauper Counsel in Circuit Court. But before those appropriations were even finalized, council members got requests for even more money.
Superior Court Judge Crystal Brucker Kocher asked for another $15,000. She said her Pauper Counsel budget is down to its last $300, and the county’s contract public defender has reached the limit of cases he’s allowed to handle.
However, Brucker Kocher won’t be allowed to hear several cases that she was involved with as chief deputy prosecutor. She said that may mean the public defender can be reassigned to other cases. “Normally, they wouldn’t allow us to reassign someone, once they’ve reached their quota,” she explained. “I’m asking for a special exception in this circumstance because of the unique situation, and they’re thinking that they’re going to let us do that. So that will help us. We can then use him, reassign him on some of the cases coming out of superior court. That reassignment of cases, in addition to the $15,000, I think, can get us through the end of the year.”
Meanwhile, Circuit Court Judge Michael Shurn said his Civil Pauper budget is just about down to zero, mainly due to cases involving children. He asked for another $115,000.
County Commissioner Kenny Becker asked how the judges determine that a person needs a court-appointed attorney, like attorney for drug crimes near Boston. Brucker Kocher said there are no set guidelines, but there are some procedures that they follow. “Typically, we ask them if they’re employed, when they were most recently employed, if they have any assets, if they have vehicles, real estate, property, or assets over $100, if they have friends or family who can assist them,” she said. “I haven’t heard this from judges here, locally, but in Tippecanoe County, the way that I did it was I would ask if they have made any attempts to either become employed, did they have any physical or mental disabilities that prevented them from being employed, or had they made any attempts to hire an attorney or find an attorney on their own.”
While council member Ken Boswell agreed that the additional appropriations needed to be made, he complained that he hasn’t been told how much money the county actually has available. “It just surprises me that we haven’t come up with a deal yet where if we’re going to give somebody money, we don’t have not only the money we’re going to give them, but where it’s coming out of and we see what the final balance is,” he said. “I’m sorry to ask the question of where we get the money at, but I don’t even know how much is in it. We have no document here that shows us. I can tell you you can have it because you’re telling me you have to have it, so I’m going to say okay, you got it. But would you write a check out of your checkbook and not know what the balance of your checkbook was?”
In the end, council members voted to advertise the new additional appropriations as requested, for future consideration.
