Yesterday I watched a two and one-half hour hearing in Rice County about paying for an attorney for an indigent 19-year-old whose child has been in the county’s custody since the baby was born last September.
Attorney Grant Sanders has been representing the mother for four months for free, even though he was appointed by the court. (Ironically, he is a public defender on laid-off status.) The county has defied a court order to pay the attorney fees, now amounting to $4,000. The county argues, not without justification, that the court has no authority to order it to pay and the state should pay. The mother is a Native American and possibly the federal government should pay. The Board of Public Defense says it hasn’t got the state funds to pay for lawyers for parents, and the county says it doesn’t either.
A report to the state judicial council concludes that the Legislature should fund legal representation for parents, Indian custodians and legal guardians in child protection cases. I’m not optimistic about this happening. I predict continued wrangling on a case-by-case basis throughout the state, or at least in the two other Minnesota counties that have taken the same position as the Rice county board. (I hope we don’t see other counties changing their positions.)
A hearing requiring two county attorneys, two defense attorneys, Chief Public Defender Karen Duncan (who was a witness), Judge Thomas Neuville and at least three court staff — with appeals no doubt in the offing — is the least efficient and most expensive way to resolve this problem. Neuville commented during the hearing that one remedy is to dismiss the petition. I don’t know if that puts a baby at risk or not.
Lawmakers have got to understand that funding people’s fundamental rights is not an option. Whether the Legislature starts from scratch or makes budget cuts in some other way, the legislators have got to do the right thing. The legal community has to help them, starting today.
[...] The showdown over legal fees in Rice County continues, and so far the county is losing. After a hearing on Jan. 5, District Court Judge Thomas Neuville issued a preemptory writ of mandamus ordering the [...]