D.C. Witness Investigation Finds Attorneys For The Indigent Face Caseload That’s ‘Started to Explode’

By Jeff Levine - November 4, 2024
Court | Daily Stories | Featured | Suspects |

Room “C 10” in the DC Superior Court building is often at its busiest on Monday afternoons as defendants come out of the weekend “lock up” for their initial “presentment” in the city’s criminal justice system.  

A large lightboard outside displays the emerging schedule for relatives, friends and crime victims, much like arrivals and departures in an airport terminal.   

Almost all presentment defendants depend on a court appointed attorney because they can’t afford private counsel. However, finding subsidized legal help has become increasingly difficult because there simply aren’t enough lawyers willing to do this grueling kind of work.

Some have made the journey into this legal labyrinth many times like Louis Wesson, 28, who says without a court appointed lawyer he would literally and figuratively be defenseless.

“It’s one of the scariest places you can imagine,” says Wesson of the courtroom.  “All they care about is, is there enough to make the case?  You never know what’s going to happen.” 

On this day, some 80 cases were heard before DC Superior Court Judge Renee Raymond.  These proceedings must occur within 24 hours of arrest or 48 hours if the offense occurs on the weekend.  Based on the evidence the judge decides whether to hold or release the suspect.

“It’s a dirty, smelly, wonderful ‘emergency room’ of the criminal justice world, but I love it. I think of myself as a kind of trauma surgeon in that ER of the halls of justice. I wouldn’t have any other job,” says Todd Baldwin who’s president of the DC Superior Court Trial Lawyers Association (SCTLA), the official organization for what are known as “panel attorneys.”

The group handles most criminal cases for indigent clients all the way from arrest to disposition that “have started to explode,” says Baldwin.  

Often invisible to the public, and separate from the Public Defender Service (PDS), this freelance panel is, nonetheless, an essential part of the judicial machinery. Panel lawyers operate under the auspices of the federal Criminal Justice Act (CJA) of 1964, guaranteeing legal representation regardless of income.

In the wake of retirements, fewer newcomers are willing to work for the relatively low pay rate.  Baldwin says panel attorneys can only charge $110 an hour, an amount that has changed little in 15 years and a fraction of the hourly rate for lawyers on K Street.  

“Although D.C.[local] Courts modestly increased the hourly rate for court-appointed attorneys in January 2023 for the first time since 2009, the rate remains considerably lower than that paid in Federal Courts,” according to a DC Court budget document. 

Every defendant that comes before the court is constitutionally entitled to an attorney, even if he or she can’t afford one. If not, counsel will be appointed.  Panel lawyers have been picking up as many as 25 cases a day.

In response to the increasing volume, the association has created a sub-group called the Emergency Excess Panel (EEP) backed up by two stand-in attorneys to make an initial contact to be followed up by an essential in depth conversation at a later date. 

He says a panel attorney can limit the number of new cases taken in a single day but many attorneys have taken themselves off the EEP because their case loads are too high.

It’s a voluntary effort to pass around cases as fairly as possible, but, while it hasn’t happened it’s possible there might not be enough attorneys to cover the need on a given day, Baldwin says. 

Among those still on the job is Charles Murdter, assigned on this occasion as a “stand-in” because lawyers to take on the cases full time are not immediately available.  That means the stand-ins fill the gap sometimes without even interviewing a client prior to a court appearance and entering a plea.

Murdter’s cases move quickly–a defendant facing a fugitive arson charge pending in Maryland waived a preliminary hearing and pleaded not guilty.  

Another client accused of harassment was ordered to stay away from the victim and released from his shackles.

The presentment is the beginning of a complex legal process that can take months or even years to resolve and requires skilled representation to keep the scales of justice in balance.

However, based on a months-long investigation talking to lawyers, court officials and reviewing court documents, D.C. Witness has found the system is facing daily case overload.

In terms of providing adequate representation, one panel attorney, who asked not to be identified, called the current approach a “band-aid” when the optimum is to have an assigned attorney from the start. 

Even so, Wesson says his appointed attorney has done an “outstanding” job during the two years they’ve worked together. “He’s there to answer questions, even when he’s out of town.”  

His lawyer, who requested not to be named, says many of those hours were uncompensated based on statutory limits for time that can be billed for each case. 

“Basically, because so few defense lawyers volunteer to pick up cases right now, those who do pick [them] up get an unmanageable burden,” said the lawyer.

That lawyer is also worried even though the problem hasn’t become a constitutional crisis, “quality will decrease for many defendants, and burnout will occur for many of the lawyers who struggle to do the job well.”

In our next report on Nov. 6, why a dilemma over available dollars stands in the way of a solution.