Poor Are Suffering From Absentee Defense, Critics Say : Courts: Panel of judges, citing modern technology, reject complaints that lawyer whose county contract was renewed should spend more time personally arguing cases.

The proposed reorganization of Orange County’s largest contract for defending poor criminal defendants drawing fire Thursday as critics charged that Santa Ana attorney William W. Stewart should be held more accountable for representing clients in the courtroom.

Among the loudest of those critics, South Municipal Court Judge Pamela L. Iles said Stewart’s long absence from daily court proceedings and his many outside business interests in Colombia, Russia and Las Vegas have sapped his ability to provide effective representation to poor people accused of crimes.

“What you have here are poor people who are at the mercy of the courts to oversee their rights, but that can’t be done when you have an attorney who is out of the country a lot of the time communicating with the court . . . by telephone or fax,” said Iles, who is a member of the county committee that oversees contract policy.

John Palacio, Orange County director of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that the reorganization plan smacked of favoritism and the proposed changes don’t go far enough.

The plan offered Wednesday by Central Municipal Court judges would allow Stewart to retain a financial stake in the contract for the Santa Ana courthouse, but it asks that he share the huge caseload equally with two other law firms.

Presiding Central Court Judge Gregory H. Lewis said Thursday that the judges did not consider Stewart’s long-distance administration of the contract to be a problem and did not address the issue in their closed-door discussions of the reorganization.

“In these days of modern technology, you could just as easily be doing business here from San Bernardino as South America,” Lewis said. “Bill Stewart is a gentleman. We don’t have a problem with him.”

Since Stewart has more than a year remaining on his contract, worth nearly $1 million a year, judges said, the entire reorganization hinges on whether Stewart approves of the Central Court’s plan.

Lewis said the arrangement does not have to be ratified by the Board of Supervisors. Neither does it require Stewart to refrain from his many out-of-country business interests nor ask that he personally represent clients in the courtroom.

Lewis declined to say whether the reorganization proposal had won unanimous approval from the Santa Ana jurists. All 15 Central Court judges attended Wednesday’s closed meeting. All requests for comment were referred to Lewis’ court.

Stewart, who has been the subject of criticism in recent weeks for his handling of the nearly $1-million-a-year contract, had not responded to the court’s plan Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

Palacio asked how the judges could retain Stewart while knowing that he has subcontracted many of his cases to other attorneys and that he maintains outside business interests far from Orange County.

“The judges have admitted that there are problems, but they don’t seem to be willing to correct them,” Palacio said. “It seems to me that there are inefficiencies in having someone administer a contract from another country.”

He said the judges “need to deal with the public image of this thing.”

Lewis said the judges’ talks have centered on a concern that Stewart’s firm had not been able to provide enough attorneys to cover court appearances for poor clients.

If Stewart were to agree to the reorganization plan, Lewis said, his Santa Ana law firm would share the indigent caseload with the law firms of Patrick McNeal and Laz & Hill, which now serve as backups to Stewart.

The public defender’s office generally provides legal services to indigent clients, but must defer to private firms under county contract when conflicts arise in cases where there are multiple defendants. In Santa Ana, Stewart’s firm has held the contract for such referrals for the past 15 years.

The backup defense firms of Patrick McNeal and Laz & Hall have handled only those Central Court contract cases in which Stewart’s firm has disqualified itself because of perceived conflicts of interest.

Lewis said Thursday he had not talked with the backup firms about the reorganization because Stewart has not told him of his decision in the matter.