In 2007 the Knox County Public Defenders Community Law Office faced a crisis. The number of indigent people in need of our services was growing at a rate that was disproportionate to the number of public defenders staffed to meet those needs. With 24 lawyers committed to providing the best representation available to our clients, we found that, on a growing number of cases, our ability to match that commitment with even adequate representation was slipping. We found that that the number of cases was causing us to make compromises lawyers should not have to make: assigning greater value to one client over another, not just based on the seriousness of his or her case, but out of a split-second, intuitive response caused by crushing caseloads and the fast, complex course of justice. In providing effective representation for all, making those kinds of compromises is unacceptable. We had to do something about that.
In March of 2008, Chattanooga attorneys T. Maxfield Bahner, Hugh J. Moore, Jr., and D. Aaron Love, filed on behalf of the CLO a Petition to Suspend Appointment of the District Public Defender to Defendants in the Knox County General Sessions Court, Misdemeanor Division. In preparing this petition, CLO public defenders sought to remedy the obstacles to effective representation by concentrating our combined professional focus on the staggeringly high number of Felony and DUI cases filed in the General Sessions Courts of Knox County. In achieving this goal, it would be necessary to suspend appointment of public defender services in the Misdemeanor division of Sessions Court, where no offense carries a penalty of greater than 11 months, 29 days. Defendants charged with misdemeanors would not be denied adequate counsel; on the contrary, ready and willing representation would be provided by appointment of members of the local private bar of Knox County.
On June 10, 2008, an en banc hearing took place before the five judges of the General Sessions Courts of Knox County. The proof included: testimony of public defenders regarding the demands of their practice versus the demands of the system; the introduction of public defender case-count data , including expert testimony on its relationship to ABA standards of effective representation; and also testimony from members of the local criminal defense bar on standards of effective representation. At the conclusion of proof, the Court allowed a representative of the State Attorney General’s Office to argue counter to the relief being sought. The Court took under advisement the AG’s request to be entered as a party to the action, and adjourned after taking under advisement all of the proof offered by the Knox County Public Defenders Community Law Office. A ruling is pending.
UPDATE: On July 25, 2008, Mr. Stephens filed motions in all three criminal courts seeking to withdraw from certain cases and to temporarily suspend future appointments in those courts pending an opinion from the Sessions Court Judges.
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