The public legal defense system in Onondaga County is being highlighted by a civil liberties group on the eve of a lawsuit against the state to change it.
A third of alleged criminals in Onondaga County using public defenders never met with their lawyers outside of the courtroom, a report from the New York Civil Liberties Union has found.
Onondaga County was one of five in the state singled out in the report.
The New York Civil Liberties Union says the over-worked, understaffed public legal counsel system in the state is short-changing poor people who need representation.
"Which leaves them unable to mount the kind of challenge to the prosecutors’ cases that is needed in our adversarial system of justice, justice is done," said NYCLU staff attorney Corey Stoughton.
The NYCLU says without access to attorneys, defendants often spend more time in jail and get harsher sentences.
"Most of those people, the vast majority, ultimately plead guilty to criminal charges, never once having had a chance to speak to their attorney outside of catching them in the courtroom, which is not a confidential meeting space," Stoughton said.
Onondaga County appoints lawyers to defendants that need them. There’s no public defender’s office. Only a handful of other states use a county-by-county piecemeal approach to legal services like New York.
Christina Cagnina used to work for Onondaga County’s public defense system. She said over 14 years, she was never able to represent clients the way she wanted to.
"I was at a constant disadvantage representing my clients," she said. "While the prosecutor’s office had a roster of investigators working for them, it was next to impossible for me to ever get any qualified investigators to work on my cases because of the miserably low compensation rates."
Most public defenders are handling about four times as many felony cases as is recommended, the report found. They often lack access to investigators, paralegals and even computers in some counties, according to the NYCLU.
The NYCLU sued the state seven years ago. The trial is finally set to begin in a few weeks, on Oct. 7. The NYCLU wants to see a state-wide public defenders system setup.
