The state’s top public defender says her office has run out of money for panel attorneys and is forced to stick Maryland’s counties and Baltimore City with a $4.5 million annual bill.
Public Defender Nancy Forster told a meeting of the Baltimore City Criminal Justice Coordinating Council that as of Oct. 1 her “chronically underfunded” office has stopped paying for panel attorneys — contracted private defense lawyers needed when poor suspects have co-defendants who legally cannot also be represented by her office.
Forster referred to the situation as “crisis mode.”
Baltimore City will bear the largest portion of the bill: An estimated $1.2 million annually. Sterling Clifford, a spokesman for Mayor Sheila Dixon, said the city is figuring out how to pay the tab.
Kim Schultz, Forster’s spokeswoman, said the state agency is trying to get more funding from Gov. Martin O’Malley.
“We’ve already been through all the necessary steps,” she said. “At this point, nobody’s told us they’re going to give us any more money. How each county is going to handle it remains to be seen. We may start seeing the repercussions of this by next week.”
Shaun Adamec, a spokesman for O’Malley, said the governor asked all state agencies — including the public defender’s office to recommend 5 percent in cuts to their respective budgets.
The state needs to find about $432 million in cuts before the end of fiscal 2009, Adamec said.
“We’re obviously in a pretty awful financial situation,” Adamec said. “The governor is committed to ensuring defendants receive their constitutional rights, but we can’t allocate money that’s not there. All of our state agencies have pressing needs. We’ve trimmed the fat. Now we’re cutting into flesh. We have an ethical and legal responsibility to submit a balanced budget to the General Assembly.”
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