Conflict Attorney Fees.

In the December 15 article discussing conflict attorney pay, where flat fees are addressed, it's interesting that so many in the private bar see this as setting up, as stated by Derek Byrd, "ineffective assistance of counsel on its face."

This is basically stating that any of the cases currently handled by the Office of Regional Counsel, the various public defenders offices, and even the state attorneys offices are on its face ineffective assistance of counsel. In the June 15 News story, "The role money plays in wrongful convictions," Jan Pudlow laid out the averages that face both the state attorneys and public defenders. In that article it states the state attorneys in 2011 averaged "about 900 case referrals annually per assistant state attorney." The public defenders office averaged about 500 cases per lawyer. Based on the flat rate system that has been called "ineffective assistance of counsel on its face," using the lowest dollar amount allowed per case ($400) each assistant state attorney would be paid $360,000 per year, and each public defender, $200,000.

Even if one were to reduce that amount by half to compensate for the cost of staff and other expenses that are paid by the state, there would still be a significant increase from the low $40,000 that is the starting pay for the attorneys employed by...