THE DEFENSE
NEVER RESTS
Al Flora Jr., the Luzerne chief
public defender and Olexa’s
boss, says he anguished over his
decision to sue the county. For
nearly two years, attorneys on
his staff — starting with Olexa —
had come to him asking for help
in reducing their caseloads to a
manageable level. Some were in
over their heads, missing filing
deadlines and court appearances.
Others were burning out, losing
their tempers with clients and in
court, and taking unacceptable
shortcuts in their work. A few
attorneys told him they feared
making a serious mistake and
putting an innocent client behind
bars. The office was also under
intense scrutiny in the wake of a
major scandal involving its representation of juvenile defendants.
But county officials continually
rebuffed Flora’s pleas for additional funding, he says.
“It came to the point where
I just felt that we couldn’t do it
anymore,” he says. “This had to
be stopped.”
The county fiercely contested
the suit, setting the stage for a
long, uphill battle in the courts.
Advocates for indigent defense
reform are watching the case
closely. If it succeeds, it may serve
HUFFINGTON
10.28.12
as a model for other overburdened
offices throughout the country.
“I think that public defenders
have to consider this option, and
have to study what’s going on in
Luzerne County and learn from
it,” says Ed Burnette, vice president of defender legal services for
the National Legal Aid and Defender Association in Washington,
D.C., and a former chief public
defender for Cook County, Ill., the
second-largest defender office in
the country. “It certainly is going
to impact the mainstream.”
“THIS REPRESENTS A CRISIS”
America’s prisons and jails hold
more people, in sheer numbers
and on a per-capita basis, than
any country on earth, including
China, Cuba and Iran. Those prisons and jails are kept full through
the ceaseless work of a massive
criminal justice apparatus that
processes the 14 million people
arrested every year, on an average
of about 26 every minute, according to the Justice Department.
The vast majority of those arrested are poor, often desperately so;
many are mentally ill, homeless
or addicted to drugs and alcohol.
Only a small percentage can afford
a private attorney.