ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : No Defense for This

Fiscal pressures are felt everywhere these days, from the home to business to government. They clearly are felt in the courtroom as well, as Orange County’s public defenders showed when, faced with a proposed budget cut, they refused to represent any new clients. It was a gesture as dramatic as it was wrong.

Public defenders have the unenviable task of defending poor clients, who many people think do not deserve a defense at all. The Constitution fortunately requires that the accused be presumed innocent legally and that they be defended, regardless of public opinion.

The county’s public defender’s office has done a good job in fulfilling its mandate. And public defenders’ concern was evidenced earlier when they charged that two Santa Ana Municipal Court judges repeatedly denied poor defendants’ rights in order to keep a high rate of guilty pleas. The Orange County Bar Assn. investigated the charges, found them justified and correctly criticized the court.

By withholding services for a day, and threatening to repeat the pattern one day each month, the public defenders did not actually deprive people of counsel. Instead, they passed the buck to private attorneys who hold contracts with the county, which cost taxpayers more.

But the lawyers had better ways to show the effect of possible budget cuts. They could have protested at public hearings on the budget, or at a later press conference with court officials. The public defenders should rethink their methods of coping with less money.