HD44 - Indigent Defense Systems in Virginia
Executive Summary: The Public Defender Commission oversees the operations of 11 offices serving 23 jurisdictions across the state. Four additional offices are to be established in FY 1989-90. The scope of services provided in the offices includes assisting the court in determining indigency, providing legal counsel and investigative services to those determined to be indigent, and providing appellate defense up to and including appeals to the Supreme Court of Virginia. Since 1985, the Joint Subcommittee Studying Alternative Indigent Defense Systems in Virginia has conducted several studies of the costs of providing legal defense services to indigents charged with criminal offenses. These studies have focused on expanding the public defender system as a cost-avoidance mechanism, payment rates for private bar attorneys appointed by the courts, national trends in relation to how indigent defense systems are structured, and the potential cost of expanding Virginia's public defender system to a statewide system. The 1989 Session of the General Assembly passed House Joint Resolution 280, which required the Department of Planning and Budget, in cooperation with other state agencies, to study the feasibility of establishing a statewide public defender system. The objectives of this study were: • To recommend appropriate workload standards, staffing levels, and salary levels for the existing and future public defender offices; • To identify judicial circuits in which the establishment of a public defender office would be less costly than providing indigent defense through private bar court appointments; and, • To evaluate the feasibility of establishing a state appellate defender office. |
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