People aren’t always arrested at convenient times during the day, and the majority of those facing criminal charges can’t afford a lawyer. Albany County, though, has received funds to offset costs of public defenders being called in the middle of the night.
Albany County Executive Dan McCoy announced the county was awarded $656,000 of state grant funding for the Counsel at First Appearance Project on Wednesday, Feb. 19. The state Office of Indigent Legal Services provided the three-year grant, which helps the county provide legal representation during arraignment to those who cannot afford an attorney. Albany County was one of 25 counties applying for the grant, with all awarded funding from the $12 million grant program.
“Basically, 80 percent of people that get prosecuted can’t afford an attorney,” McCoy said. “This money will definitely help us offset the cost at night.”
Counties are required to provide legal representation if someone can’t afford an attorney, but often an arraignment would proceed without an attorney present.
In his 2012 State of the Judiciary report, state Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman described the lack of representation during arraignment as a “disturbing practice.”
“It is greatly troubling and entirely unacceptable that newly-arrested defendants can be arraigned before a judge, have bail set, and be incarcerated — all without a lawyer present,” Lippman said in the report. “It is so basic to fundamental fairness that criminal defendants are represented, at every critical stage of the process, by qualified counsel.”
The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a class-action lawsuit against the state in 2007 for allegedly failing to provide counsel to the poor. In December, the State Supreme Court in Albany ruled the lawsuit would proceed to trail. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 20 residents across Onondaga, Ontario, Schuyler and Washington counties.
NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman expressed confidence the lawsuit would prevail in trial.
“This decision gives indigent defendants who have been denied counsel their day in court,” NYCLU Senior Staff Attorney Corey Stoughton, lead counsel on the case, previously said in a statement. “The State of New York will have to face accountability for its decades-long failure to uphold the law requiring fair, competent and timely representation for the poor.”
The Albany County Public Defender’s Office also has tentatively been awarded $299,528 in grant funding through the Upstate Quality Improvement and Caseload Reduction program. The grant would allow the county to hire another lawyer to help manage its an increasing caseload.
“The state recognizes that if we are to continually improve the quality of these state-mandated services, we need the support to make sure we can offer legal counsel to those who really need it,” McCoy said in a statement. “The county will continue to pursue these streams of funding to ensure that the Public Defender’s Office can function at a high level.”
McCoy said after the three-year first appearance grant funding is gone the burden would once again fall on the county.
“Hopefully, there will be more grant funding after three years,” McCoy said. “When it ends, it hurts.”