Grant County public defense monitoring finished

EPHRATA - The Grant County public defense monitor finished his work Friday.

The monitor was part of a Kittitas County civil lawsuit and settlement agreement which changed how the Department of Public Defense operated. The case dates back to 2004, when Jeffrey Best, Daniel Campos, Gary D. Hutt and Greg Hansen sued the county alleging deficiencies in the public defense system. The American Civil Liberties Union and Columbia Legal Services represented the men.

The settlement agreement was reached following an October 2005 summary judgment ruling people needing public defense in the county received ineffective assistance from their attorneys, according to court records. The county's system paid a single attorney to handle public defense, and the attorney was responsible for paying his salary and for other attorneys and experts from the money.

The system led to the attorneys handling an excessive amount of cases, according to court records.

The settlement agreement set a limit of 150 case credits a year for defenders working in Grant County Superior Court, according to court records. A case credit generally is equal to a felony case, but attorneys can be awarded additional credits depending on the charges, complexity, number of defendants or length of trial.

The agreement called for defense attorneys to have similar salaries to deputy prosecutors with the same amount of experience, according to court records. A monitor, Tito Rodriguez, was appointed to monitor the system and issued quarterly reports about Grant County public defense.

The plaintiffs and the county reached an agreement in August to end monitoring, and change how the system was set up. The parties agreed to have a single public defense system handle superior, juvenile and district court. The department is led by a director, Stephen Kozer, with three supervising attorneys. The supervisors each head one section of the department.

As part of the agreement, the monitor would issue at least one report three months after Kozer's appointment in December. The plaintiffs decided to continue monitoring for another three-month period.

The monitor finished with his work on Friday, said Jennifer Shaw, ACLU Washington's deputy director. Kozer is continuing to send regular reports to the plaintiffs.

"There will be a final evaluation by an outside expert sometime in the fall," she said. "The expectation is the case will be over by the end of the year."

Shaw was not aware of any issues with the monitor's reports.

Grant County Commissioner Richard Stevens was uncertain whether the county was entirely clear of the monitor, he said. The settlement agreement calls for Kozer to not handle any cases, and he is still handling cases.

"So right now, I'm unsure where we stand. I haven't talked to anyone from the plaintiff group. They're standing back and letting Mr. Kozer handle things," he said. "It will be good to lose the monitor and that cost, but we still have to stand muster this fall."

Stevens estimated the monitor costs the county between $125,000 to $135,000 a year, he said. The money is likely to go back into public defense costs. The department needs to hire two attorneys to replace ones which recently left the department.

"Our numbers are something we're going to have to watch really carefully," he said. "Maybe we're clear on all this. Maybe we're not."