Who knows if public defenders' clients are indigent or not?

When Florida's overburdened public defenders are appointed to represent people charged with crimes, are their new clients really too poor to hire their own attorneys?

Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, chair of the Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee, wants to find out.

Currently, he said, nothing is being done to verify information on the one-page "application for criminal indigent status" form that those accused of crimes fill out, along with paying a $50 application fee.

"Why don't we just save some time and ask them to fill out a form on whether they are guilty or innocent?" Crist asked during his committee's December 8 meeting.

"We have an agency that is very, very valuable, that has a workload that's unbelievable. We have a shrinking budget, and we have a constitutional requirement to ensure access to the courts and representation of all individuals, especially those who cannot afford counsel," Crist said.

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"We are trusting, basically, the arrested person and taking their word that what they are telling us is truthful right up front."

On the receiving end of Crist's words was Eighth Circuit Public Defender C. Richard Parker, standing at the podium representing the Florida Public Defender Association.

Parker recalled there used to be a Statewide Indigency Examiner Program, but he thought that it was disbanded because it cost more to administer the program than the savings reaped by ferreting out the few unqualified public defender clients, and a very low number of cases were actually turned back. Parker said the judges are the "final arbiters" of who is appointed the public defender.

In a special session in December 2001, the Legislature eliminated $979,313 total for indigency examiners in each circuit. According to a report from the Office of Program Policy and Government Analysis, the program was dropped because it was "not operating as the Legislature intended" and was "characterized by uneven implementation and statewide fragmentation."

In some circuits, court bailiffs filled out the affidavits with minimal information or handed the paperwork to defendants to complete. Overall, examiners only reviewed a small percentage of affidavits. The accounting was so inaccurate that one circuit reported "280 percent of defendants" were determined to be indigent.

"With better direction, the program may be able to pay for itself statewide through costs avoided as a result of inappropriate public defender...