Until Aug. 21, few people - including state lawmakers and longtime attorneys - had ever given much thought to the Office of the Public Defender Board of Trustees or even knew it existed. But that day, the three-member panel fired the state's chief public defender, Nancy S. Forster, a decision that thrust it into the spotlight and made it an immediate target of reform.
This month, a Senate committee in Annapolis will consider how to reshape the governor-appointed board. Lawmakers and national experts say the board's small size leaves it vulnerable to political whims, from which defenders of the poor are supposed to be shielded. Most state public defender boards have at least nine members, some as many as 24.
"My gut tells me three is too small a number for a function this important," said Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. Lawmakers have begun discussing bills to enlarge and diversify the oversight panel.
But the board, composed of two Baltimore-area private attorneys and one from Prince George's County, won't be reconstituted before it takes its next major step - hiring a new chief public defender, who will set the course for the 500-attorney state agency. That is likely to happen this fall, well before the legislative session begins in January.
The primary function of the oversight board is to hire and fire the top public defender, who serves at its pleasure. Two members voted to oust Forster, while a third objected and sent a letter in support of her to Gov. Martin O'Malley.
Chairman T. Wray McCurdy of Baltimore County and Margaret Mead of Baltimore decided to fire Forster after she refused to implement cost-cutting measures amid a national recession that has hurt the state. Forster argued that the board's demands - which included disbanding several specialized units of attorneys, firing social workers and privatizing some functions - would set the nearly 40-year-old agency's progress back a decade.
Board member Theresa Moore of Prince George's County wanted to keep Forster in her post.
Mead said the board's current composition "works very well."
"We had a decision to make and it was made," she said, adding that she's confident a six- nine- or 13-member board would have reached the same conclusion. Mead said she would "leave it up to the wisdom of the legislature" whether the board should be enlarged, though she noted that more people rarely equals more efficiency.
