THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 17, 1995 TAG: 9504150012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
This country espouses the ideal of equal justice under the law, but more often the reality is: Money talks. The quantity of justice one obtains is often in direct proportion to the quality of lawyering one can afford.
Reporting by staff writers June Arney and Joe Jackson in The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star last week suggests that to be poor and in trouble with the law in Virginia is to be in great danger of being poorly represented. That's because Virginia has caps on fees for court-appointed attorneys that are the lowest in the nation.
It would be pleasant to suppose that lawyers are above base considerations when it comes to representing indigent clients, but that's just not the case. Lawyers have to earn a living too, and the fees allowed by Virginia make that impossible.
In juvenile- and district-court cases, a Virginia lawyer appointed by the court receives a maximum of $100. In circuit court, the maximum authorized pay in noncapital felonies that can cost a defendant 20 years of his life is $575. The cap on lesser felonies is $265. And for misdemeanors heard in circuit court, it's $132.
Those fees are absurdly low. If a case took 25 hours to prepare and argue, a lawyer in a serious felony trial could earn as little as $20 an hour, not counting expenses. That's less than a psychologist, plumber, auto-repair-shop owner or competent barber can take home. In juvenile or misdemeanor cases, the compensation could come to less than $10 an hour. That's getting close to baby-sitter wages.
Compensation so niggardly practically guarantees poor representation. Many better lawyers won't take cases for pay so low. Those who do will make haste so as not to tie up any more time than necessary in a money-losing cause. Yet it is precisely the more complicated case that takes longer to defend that may pose the greatest threat to an innocent person. Ever-heavier caseloads only increase the impetus to rush through each trial.
That's hardly the kind of atmosphere that produces a spirited defense or a zealous pursuit of truth and justice. But 65 percent of indigent defendants are represented by court-appointed attorneys laboring under a fee structure that gives them an incentive to get it over with in a hurry.
The state has long recognized the problem. It has conducted 13 studies over the course of the past 20 years. You'd think by now the nature of the problem would be clear, and the solution obvious. The cap must be increased substantially or eliminated, as is the case in 21 states.
It is one thing to be tough on criminals; it is quite another to create a system that stacks the deck against one class of defendant simply because its membership is poor. Virginia's fees for court-appointed attorneys are a festering disgrace, a wrong that should have been put right long ago. by CNB