‘Conflicts Office’ to Join System of Legal Defense for the Poor : Supervisors’ Action Sounds Final Gavel on the Nonprofit Community Defenders

Closing a controversial chapter in the evolution of San Diego’s legal community, the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the final component of the region’s newly created system for representing poor people accused of crimes.

With virtually no debate, the board agreed to establish a Conflicts Administrator’s Office that will coordinate the assignment of so-called “conflicts” cases to defense attorneys in private practice.

Conflicts cases are the estimated 4,500 cases annually that the county’s recently formed Public Defender’s Office cannot handle because of a conflict of interest. Most are cases involving multiple defendants.

The board’s 3-0 vote, with Supervisors Susan Golding and Brian Bilbray absent, was applauded by many criminal defense attorneys, who have lobbied vigorously to retain a role for the private bar in the county’s new public defender system. It was also endorsed by the San Diego County Bar Assn. and administrators of the Municipal and Superior Courts.

A Contender for Contract

But the action spelled doom for Community Defenders Inc., a nonprofit organization that has been the county’s largest provider of indigent defense services for more than 20 years. At one time, the supervisors intended to give CDI a $40-million contract to handle all criminal cases involving low-income defendants.

On May 17, however, Bilbray abruptly switched his vote and the county-run Public Defender’s Office was created instead. That vote came after calls by Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) for an investigation into allegations that CDI’s executive director, Alex Landon, had aided a Chino prison inmate in a 1972 escape.

In a last gasp to stay alive, CDI’s leaders asked the board to designate it the primary provider of attorneys for the conflicts cases. But their proposal, which CDI officials argued would provide the county with quality representation and the most bang for its buck, was rejected Tuesday.

That move was virtually the final nail in CDI’s coffin. Later in the day, its Board of Trustees voted unanimously to dismantle the corporation.

“It’s over. There is really no reason for us to exist any longer,” James Spievak, chairman of the CDI board, said. “The next step is to get the furniture appraised and sell it off.”

Spievak said the 18 attorneys who remain employed by CDI--which once had a staff of 39 lawyers--will wrap up the estimated 300 cases they are handling before moving on to new jobs. He said that, effective today, CDI will stop accepting all appointed cases except those in Juvenile Court, where its lawyers will continue to represent indigents until Monday.

“It’s a sad day, and I just feel bad that hundreds of hours of volunteer attorney time devoted to bettering the system was effectively wasted,” said Spievak, referring to the recommendation of a blue-ribbon panel that a nonprofit group like CDI be selected to take over the indigent defense caseload.

List of Attorneys

“CDI is dying because our illustrious assemblyman (Stirling) made Alex’s alleged history a political issue, and we just weren’t created to play that game.”

Under the proposal approved Tuesday, a conflicts administrator will be hired to maintain a list of attorneys who will be appointed to cases on a rotating basis. Assistant Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen said each judicial district--downtown San Diego, North County, East County and South Bay--probably will have its own panel of lawyers.

To qualify for a spot on those lists, lawyers must pass muster with a committee of attorneys recommended by the county bar association and selected by Municipal and Superior Court judges.

Janssen said the conflicts system will either be managed in-house by the county bureaucracy or may be an independent program farmed out to a nonprofit group. Both the county bar association and the University of San Diego Law Center have expressed interest in running the system, Janssen said.

The new program will replace a system managed jointly by the county’s Office of Defender Services and the courts. Janssen said its estimated annual cost is $2.3 million; he expects it will be up and running within four months.

The approach endorsed by the board was one of seven alternatives presented Tuesday. Other suggested strategies included creating an in-house office of 19 civil servant attorneys who would strictly handle conflicts cases. Although independent of the Public Defender’s Office, it would be within the county government. Administrators noted that this approach provided fiscal predictability because the attorneys’ salaries would be fixed.

Another proposal sought to give the court the authority to make appointments case by case from a list of attorneys. County staff members predicted that such a responsibility would further tax the already strained courts.

Perhaps the most controversial option among the lot called for contracting with one organization--such as CDI--for defense services countywide. CDI had offered to shoulder the conflicts caseload for less than $2.1 million annually--slightly below the county’s estimated budget for the job.

Move Was Opposed

“We felt that as an organization with 20 years of experience doing this work, we were best equipped to step right in and take over the conflicts cases,” Spievak said. “Our attorneys are trained at this work. There would be no start-up costs. . . . In the long run, we feel we’d provide the most cost-efficient service.”

But several attorneys’ groups, including the county bar association, opposed the awarding of the conflicts cases to CDI or any other single entity. Charles Sevilla, president of the Criminal Defense Lawyers Club, said such a move would deprive the private bar of “a role in the delivery of legal services to indigents.”

“Participation in (conflicts) cases is a way for a significant part of the bar to maintain a hand in criminal law and maintain the sharpness that comes with regular courtroom experience,” Sevilla said, noting that the majority of criminal cases have indigent defendants in need of publicly funded counsel. “Take that away and . . . you limit the amount of experience an attorney who’s not with the Public Defender can get in the criminal arena.”

That, Sevilla said, hurts clients who are not indigent. Moreover, Sevilla said, private attorney involvement injects a “performance comparison” element into the system to “keep the Public Defender’s Office honest.”

Richard Boesen, a defense attorney whose bread and butter has been court-appointed misdemeanor cases, said awarding conflicts cases to lawyers in private practice “builds integrity into the system and allows for a broad spectrum of approaches to criminal defense work.”

Presiding Municipal Judge H. Ronald Domnitz also praised the arrangement selected by the supervisors.

‘Excellent Attorneys’

“The private bar has devoted many years of service to the community, which justifies the board’s decision,” Domnitz said. “The excellent attorneys with CDI will continue to be a vital part of the criminal justice system, either as private practitioners or as part of the Public Defender’s Office.”

Also Tuesday, supervisors approved leases for public defender offices in North County, East County and downtown San Diego. The hiring of staff attorneys is continuing, and Janssen said interviews with finalists for the top job of county public defender will occur next week.