Wayne County Juvenile Defenders Contract Cut!

The Wayne County Circuit Court has cut its contract with the Legal Aid and Defender Association of Detroit (LADA), the association that provides legal representation to indigent children in juvenile court proceedings.  The association has represented juveniles in Wayne County for over 30 years.  The contract was worth $2.4 million.  The court had demanded a 20% reduction in the contract and the addition of three lawyers in the program to counteract a $55 million budget deficit for circuit court.  The association offered a 12.5% reduction and no new lawyers, prompting the court to terminate the contract.  The juvenile court plans to appoint individual lawyers to handle LADA’s 3,800 cases.  LADA had requested that the Supreme Court intervene, but the court declined to take up the matter.

It is truly a sad day for juvenile representation in Michigan.  I have long advocated public defender offices for indigent juvenile respondents.  This move puts Wayne County three steps back.  These types of cuts to indigent representation will bring Michigan back to the days before In re Gault, [387 U.S. 1 (1967)] the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision which established that under the Fourteenth Amendment, juveniles accused of crimes in a delinquency proceeding must be accorded many of the same due process rights as adults such as the right to timely notification of charges, the right to confront witnesses, the right against self-incrimination, and the right to counsel.

As court budgets throughout the state are increasingly strained due to the current economic climate, watch for more cuts to indigent representation, including GALs for incapacitated adults, representation for parents and children in child abuse and neglect matters and criminal defense.  Cutting indigent representation is a much easier way for a court to meet its budget task than laying off court staff.  It is much more difficult to look at someone you have worked with for years and tell them not to come into work tomorrow than to simply cut a contract.  While I understand how difficult these choices can be, these children have a right under the United States Constitution to competent legal counsel and that costs money.  If courts continue in this direction, I smell a lawsuit brewing similar to the case recently settled by Michigan DHS brought on behalf of foster children.

© 2009, Melinda Deel. All rights reserved.

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