Public Defender Alternative Opposed : Courts: County Bar Assn. is against Supervisor Stanton’s proposal to farm out some of office’s cases to the lowest bidder, with the aim of cost cutting.

Worried that legal services for the poor might suffer, directors of the Orange County Bar Assn. strongly oppose a tentative plan by the Board of Supervisors to farm out some of the Orange County public defender’s caseload to the lowest bidder.

Late Wednesday night, the board of the 6,000-member organization passed a formal resolution against Supervisor Roger R. Stanton’s effort to study alternatives to the public defender’s office, which represents criminal defendants too poor to hire their own attorneys.

The resolution stemmed from a measure passed by the county supervisors this week to consider a number of ways to cut the cost of indigent legal services. Among them is a pilot program to privatize a portion of the public defender’s work.

Leaders of the bar said Thursday they want to send a strong message to the Board of Supervisors, which has been tinkering for years with the idea of contracting out the public defender’s cases to private law firms.

“The Constitution provides for the right to counsel. It doesn’t say, ‘By the lowest bidder,’ ” said attorney Steven C. McCracken, the county bar president. “We see no reason to auction off the rights of the poor to profit a few people at taxpayers’ expense.”

The public defender’s office has an annual budget of about $19 million, and its 123 lawyers now handle more than 60,000 cases a year. The bulk of its work involves criminal defense, but the agency also represents those facing commitment to mental health institutions.

Studies have shown that private contracts for indigent defense, instead of a public defender’s office, have been tried in other counties, often resulting in greater expense to the public and a lower quality of legal representation for the poor.

The most notable failure of the competitive bid process occurred during the 1980s in San Diego County, where the poor quality of legal representation eventually forced the county to re-establish a public defenders office.

“Privatization does not work, and the track record shows it does not work,” McCracken said. “We felt it was important that the bar association go on record with the public, the Board of Supervisors, and with the judges as supporting very strongly the present system.”

A majority of the bar association’s 39-member board met Wednesday night to discuss the county’s latest move to study privatization. Those present voted unanimously to oppose the pilot project.

*

Stanton could not be reached for comment Thursday. But his executive assistant, Robert L. Richardson, defended the pilot program, saying the bar association leadership is overreacting and should keep an open mind about innovations that save money.

“Certainly they are entitled to their perspective,” Richardson said. “But the role of the Board of the Supervisors and my boss in particular is to make sure people have an adequate defense and to spend taxpayer dollars responsibly. To say this can only be done by government-paid attorneys is not completely accurate. To suggest that a simple pilot project will undermine the public defender is ludicrous.”

The pilot project, however, is still tentative. The board has agreed to let eight county judges who serve on the alternative defense steering committee review the program, which could take another year.

Special legislation also would be necessary to exempt the pilot program from a state law that requires the public defender to undertake all indigent defense in counties where a public defender’s office has been set up.

“Let’s not kill an idea before its tried,” Richardson said. “Just because it failed in another county doesn’t mean it can’t work here. We are living in a fiscal environmental where every stone must be turned over and different things must be tried.”

Since 1971, the public defender’s office has been audited and studied by county government, the grand jury and outside accounting firms almost every other year. Without exception, those studies found that the office is cost-effective and provides competent legal representation.

“This has been talked about for 20 years in different kinds of ways,” said Chief Deputy Public Defender Carl C. Holmes, the second in command of the office. “We’ve dealt with this issue, and all the studies have come to the same conclusion.”