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Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Ind. Courts - "Lake County might cut public defender staff"
Some quotes from a story in the NWI Times today, reported by Bill Dolan:
CROWN POINT | Lake County officials may sacrifice the jobs of at least 25 defense attorneys to trim more than $600,000 from the public cost of representing indigent criminal defendants.County Councilman Dan Dernulc, R-Highland, said that is one proposal a committee of council members and County Attorney John Dull are studying under a plan to merge and reduce the support staffs of five Lake Superior Court County and Lake Juvenile Division judges.
"We don't want to curtail justice," Dernulc said, "But we are diligently working on savings of costs and a reduction of risk on our insurance plan," he said.
Dull said they want to replace 32 part-time defense attorneys, who represent juveniles and adults who cannot afford private lawyers, with seven full-time attorneys who would represent the same number of clients for less.
He said they also want to pare the number of court bailiffs by two. * * *
Some of the 32 part-time lawyers are paid less than $9,000 a year, but all cost taxpayers $15,000 a year in insurance coverage.
The proposed full-time lawyers would receive a salary of $50,000 a year.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 7, 2011 07:46 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts