Public Defender

A state oversight panel has hired a new Maryland public defender, four months after firing the previous agency head, who had refused to implement cutbacks and other organizational changes. Montgomery County Public Defender Paul B. DeWolfe, 61, was named as state public defender Tuesday morning, appointed by the three-member Board of Trustees. He will oversee a division with 1,000 employees, including 400 lawyers charged with representing Maryland's indigent defendants, which means - in these recessionary times - that his caseload grows as his budget shrinks.

A former head of the state's public defender office has lost a challenge to her 2009 firing, as Maryland's highest court ruled against her Tuesday. Nancy S. Forster was fired in a dispute with the agency's governing board over operation of the office that represents poor people facing criminal charges. The Court of Appeals did not rule on her contention that she was wrongly fired because the changes the board sought were illegal and would harm clients. A seven-judge majority ruled against her for procedural reasons.

Faced with a court decision that could cost tens of millions of dollars to pay for lawyers at bail hearings, the Senate and House of Delegates passed conflicting measures Thursday to limit the scope of the ruling — setting up a potential tussle between the chambers on which approach to take. The Senate bill, which passed 45-1, would give suspects held by police the right to be brought before a judge with a defense lawyer within 48 hours. The House bill, which passed 133-0, would not. It seeks only to make clear that defendants are not entitled to a lawyer until they appear before a judge when the court is next in session.

The Maryland General Assembly passed bills this month that effectively reverse a Court of Appeals ruling that would have required public defenders for indigent defendants at thousands of initial bail hearings held before court commissioners each year. The legislation instead requires lawyers for poor people at reviews of those hearings, which occur less frequently and take place in front of a judge — sometimes days later. That means some of those arrested and denied bail or unable to afford it could spend a weekend or longer in jail awaiting representation.

A former head of the state's public defender office has lost a challenge to her 2009 firing, as Maryland's highest court ruled against her Tuesday. Nancy S. Forster was fired in a dispute with the agency's governing board over operation of the office that represents poor people facing criminal charges. The Court of Appeals did not rule on her contention that she was wrongly fired because the changes the board sought were illegal and would harm clients. A seven-judge majority ruled against her for procedural reasons.

Gov. Martin O"Malley's $69.5 million supplemental budget, an update to the overall state budget that usually comes to the General Assembly late in its 90-day session, would add 85 positions in the Office of the Public Defender to deal with a Court of Appeals decision expanding the right to representation at bail review hearings -- putting the executive brance above its limit of full-time employees. To bring the state under the limit set by the legislature's Joint Committeee on Spending Affordability, legislative analysts are recommending that lawmakers require the governor to trim 77 positions from its payroll over the next budget year, which starts July 1. The spending affordability panel has set a goal of limiting the number of full-time positions to just over 79,000.

The state would have to hire 284 new public defenders to comply with a recent Court of Appeals ruling requiring lawyers for indigent defendants at thousands of annual bail hearings, according to an affidavit filed Thursday by Maryland Public Defender Paul DeWolfe. "I have determined that the Office is unable to comply with the court's mandate at this time in light of its current resource constraints," DeWolfe wrote in the eight-page, sworn document, filed in the state's highest court.

IF YOU WALKED into Courtroom 4 of the District Courton Wabash Avenue yesterday, you likely heard two public defenders chatting about tomorrow's Ravens game. One wondered if the defending Super Bowl champs will be able to take the Denver Broncos. The other said the Ravens aren't playing well these days. The talk shifted to the travails of being public defenders. A third lawyer had come in by this time. She told the other two of a remark she had heard a judge make earlier. "He asked the defendant, `Are you going to get a lawyer or a public defender'?"

Assistant Public Defender W. Samuel Truette left the Carroll County office Monday to begin taking cases in Howard County.According to lawyers in the Carroll public defender's office, the decision to leave Carroll was Mr. Truette's.Mr. Truette, a one-time head of the Carroll County Narcotics Task Force, has been a public defender since 1990, when he left the Carroll State's Attorney's Office. In his tenure as a Carroll public defender, he represented many people who had been charged by the drug task force.

FRUITLAND - The death of a Wicomico County public defender whose body was found Tuesday in his parked pickup truck has been ruled a suicide by the state medical examiner's office. An autopsy performed yesterday determined that Anthony T. Carozza, 40, died of multiple cut wounds to his wrists, complicated by hypothermia, according to Dr. Laron Locke of the medical examiner's office. Carozza, who lived in Salisbury's Coulborn Mill Village neighborhood, was found about 4 a.m. in the truck, which was parked beside a recreational complex in Fruitland.

Gov. Martin O"Malley's $69.5 million supplemental budget, an update to the overall state budget that usually comes to the General Assembly late in its 90-day session, would add 85 positions in the Office of the Public Defender to deal with a Court of Appeals decision expanding the right to representation at bail review hearings -- putting the executive brance above its limit of full-time employees. To bring the state under the limit set by the legislature's Joint Committeee on Spending Affordability, legislative analysts are recommending that lawmakers require the governor to trim 77 positions from its payroll over the next budget year, which starts July 1. The spending affordability panel has set a goal of limiting the number of full-time positions to just over 79,000.

A Laurel man was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on a charge of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Craig Benedict Baxam, 24, is accused of trying to travel to Somalia last year to join al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida linked group that U.S. officials say is responsible for assassinations, suicide bombings and other attacks on the central government, civil society leaders, aid workers, peace activists and journalists. Baxam, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, was detained by police in Kenya in December and interviewed there by FBI agents.

Faced with a court decision that could cost tens of millions of dollars to pay for lawyers at bail hearings, the Senate and House of Delegates passed conflicting measures Thursday to limit the scope of the ruling — setting up a potential tussle between the chambers on which approach to take. The Senate bill, which passed 45-1, would give suspects held by police the right to be brought before a judge with a defense lawyer within 48 hours. The House bill, which passed 133-0, would not. It seeks only to make clear that defendants are not entitled to a lawyer until they appear before a judge when the court is next in session.

The case that led the Court of Appeals to conclude that indigent defendants arrested in Maryland should have the right to counsel when they appear before a district court commissioner put the state Office of the Public Defender in an awkward position. On principle, it agreed; the initial phase of the criminal justice process is crucial to determining the liberty of a person who is arrested, and without the benefit of counsel, far more people than necessary wound up confined to jail while awaiting trial because of excessive bail requirements.

A Dundalk man is not guilty of killing his 89-year-old neighbor, a Baltimore County judge ruled Wednesday after two days of testimony in a 2010 murder case. Michael W. Hester, who was charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Eleanor Marie Haley, said he is eager to rebuild his life. He said he entered Haley's house and found her dead after seeing water coming from her back door. He then called 911. Prosecutors argued during the trial that he killed Haley and turned on the water - a lawn sprinkler - to explain his presence at her home in the 7200 block of York Drive.

Maryland Public Defender Paul De Wolfe stated he considered using panel attorneys to represent indigent defendants to staff commissioner bail hearings, but he concluded there are not enough panel attorneys statewide to meet the demand ("Maryland public defender asks for stay in high court's ruling," Feb. 3). Last year, after months of contacting the Baltimore City Public Defender's office to get my application approved and certification as a panel attorney, I finally received my certification.

A third public defender will take over the Howard Circuit Court case of a man accused of murdering his girlfriend at the Rocky Gorge Reservoir last spring.Daniel Shemer, director of training at the state Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore, will represent Marvin Philander Smith when his case goes to trial on May 4.Howard Public Defender Carol Hanson told court officials at a hearing yesterday that Mr. Shemer will handle the case. She said her office had to withdraw its representation of Mr. Smith because of a conflict of interest.

The state would have to hire 284 new public defenders to comply with a recent Court of Appeals ruling requiring lawyers for indigent defendants at thousands of annual bail hearings, according to an affidavit filed Thursday by Maryland Public Defender Paul DeWolfe. "I have determined that the Office is unable to comply with the court's mandate at this time in light of its current resource constraints," DeWolfe wrote in the eight-page, sworn document, filed in the state's highest court.

State legislators have drafted emergency bills to reverse a Maryland Court of Appeals order forcing public defenders to attend thousands of bail hearings for indigent defendants held in front of district court commissioners each year, after law enforcement officials complained about the cost. The measures, introduced in the Maryland House and Senate, would amend the state's public defender statute to remove the right to counsel at the commissioner stage, before the high court's mandate takes effect next month.