Attorney general criticizes release of drug defendants

Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, saying he was alarmed by Monday's court-ordered pretrial release of three defendants accused of drug crimes in Springfield, sharply criticized both the Supreme Judicial Court and the Committee for Public Counsel Services yesterday for "going too far, too quickly" in addressing the state's public defender crisis.

Calling a recent $7.50 hourly increase in their compensation by the Legislature too meager, hundreds of private lawyers are still refusing to take court appointed cases for poor criminal defendants, which many have refused to take for months. The 2,500 or so private lawyers who take such cases are among the lowest-paid in the nation, officials said.

Meanwhile, the full-time public defenders who work for the committee, say they can't take on any more cases. As a result, some defendants have spent weeks in jail awaiting court-appointed lawyers.

In a case brought by public defenders in Hampden County, where the shortage has been particularly acute, the SJC recently ruled that defendants could not be jailed for more than seven days without a lawyer and that charges could be dismissed if they still had no lawyer after 45 days.

After the first three defendants were ordered released without bail Monday, Reilly said that the SJC and the committee were ignoring less severe remedies.

"The full court should again take control of this case and do it in a more systematic and thoughtful way," Reilly said yesterday of the SJC. "They should not have allowed the situation to escalate to the point where public safety is being threatened."

Saying that prosecutors routinely handle twice as many cases as public defenders, Reilly said that the court should have ordered lawyers for the committee to take a heavier caseload before taking the "extraordinary step" of ordering lawyerless defendants to be released without bail after seven days.

Public defenders are limited to 30 cases at a time under their own rules.

"You can't just walk away from your responsibilities," Reilly said.

William Leahy, chief counsel for the Committee on Public Counsel Services, defended the caseload levels yesterday, saying that public defenders have much less office and investigative support than prosecutors. In Springfield, he said, 10 public defenders share two secretaries and one part-time investigator.

"It's apples and oranges," he said. "To suggest that the function of a prosecutor supported by a whole law enforcement network is in any way comparable to the work of a public defender is absurd."

In general, Leahy asserted, Reilly's office has been "completely unhelpful" in efforts to resolve the state's public defender crisis, despite being a defendant in the Hampden County lawsuit.

"They have had nothing but criticism," Leahy said. "For them to be involved in Monday morning quarterbacking after being in the Sunday game is profoundly disappointing."

Leahy also pointed out that his office never requested that the SJC release defendants, but instead asked the high court to order higher pay for court-appointed lawyers, which the justices declined to do.

Charlotte Whiting, a spokeswoman for the SJC, declined comment yesterday, saying that the justices "never comment on decisions they make."

Before the $7.50 increase, court-appointed private lawyers earned $30 an hour for district court cases, $39 an hour for superior court cases, and $54 an hour for murder cases.

Reilly said that the increase, which amounts to approximately $17 million annually, might be better spent doubling the number of public defenders at the committee.

The agency currently has 109 in-house lawyers who handle about 20 percent of the cases involving poor defendants; the other cases are handled by court-appointed private lawyers.

On Monday, Hampden Superior Court Judge Peter Velis ordered the release of three alleged drug dealers, Philip Langley, Vernon Holmes, and Alberto Rivera.

Rivera, 21, who was arrested in Holyoke and charged with selling heroin, had been held on $10,000 bail. Langley, 23, of Westfield was being held on $250,000 bail and was charged with selling cocaine and possessing a firearm. Holmes was arrested in Springfield and charged with distributing cocaine in a school zone. He was being held on $5,000 bail.