Citing financial woes, PD stops accepting cases: hearing set in the 11th Circuit's action, more PDs may follow suit.

Swamped with cases and too broke to hire more lawyers, Florida's largest public defender office--Miami-Dade's 11th Circuit--can no longer effectively represent more clients, so it must refuse new felony cases.

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That's the gist of 11th Circuit Public Defender Bennett Brummer 's "motion to appoint other counsel in unappointed noncapital felony cases due to conflict of interest," filed June 23 by Parker Thomson, Alvin Lindsay, Julie Nevins, and Matthew Bray of Hogan & Hartson, serving as pro bono counsel on Brummer's behalf.

The matter has been set for an evidentiary hearing July 30 before 11th Circuit Administrative Judge Stanford Blake, after this News went to press.

"There isn't any choice. When they reduce our budget past a certain point, we have a constitutional and ethical obligation to say, 'No more.' We will not pretend to offer representation," Brummer said.

"Our funding has been deteriorating for many years. Since March, it's the most devastating time I've seen in 30 years. The attitude of the Legislature seems to be very nonchalant, and there seems to be no accountability there."

But Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, chair of the Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee, thrusts the blame at Brummer.

"He is grandstanding. While his colleagues around the state are willing to work with local officials and the courts, he is out there holding press conferences and filing motions. The bottom line is state revenues are shrinking," Crist said.

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"There are 20 public defenders in the state of Florida and 11 of them made aggressive efforts on their own to generate revenues to enhance their budgets. They can create trust funds and they raise revenues for those trust funds through assessing fees for services and collecting on it.... They may be indigent today, and may be a millionaire tomorrow. Who knows? If you are found guilty, you have a liability and a debt to society."

Brummer is among the nine public defenders "philosophically opposed" to trust funds, Crist said.

Crist said PDs should conduct more thorough investigations to determine if clients are truly indigent, and collect money from those they represent--even if it's 50 cents a week--and go after their estates when they die.

"Most are guilty and are receiving appointed counsel for crimes they put themselves in. To think that they should skate without some kind of obligation is wrong," Crist said.

But Brummer believes it is wrong to...