ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Public Defender Cuts Cost Private Lawyers

It wasn’t just an item on the budget cut list anymore Wednesday for about 50 private attorneys and investigators who defend Orange County’s impoverished.

In a tense meeting, the group learned that their services will no longer be needed after the public defender’s office creates two new divisions to handle criminal cases that previously had been farmed out to them.

“Everybody who walked out of that meeting, their faces were white,” said Farzin Noohi, president of Southern California Private Investigators Inc., which stands to lose about 60% of its business. “It was like, ‘I’m going to take your job right now.’ ”

The news came as one more blow for attorneys who took cases before Orange County filed for bankruptcy Dec. 6 and still have not been paid--some for trials that ended in August.

Several attorneys warned that ongoing criminal cases--some of which have already cost hundreds of thousands of dollars--could be jeopardized if the county cannot guarantee money to pay expert witnesses and investigators.

On Wednesday, attorney George A. Peters Jr. said he is “uncertain” about the status of the murder trial next month for Richard K. Overton, a Dana Point computer consultant accused of poisoning his wife with cyanide.

Peters said he is owed “tens of thousands” dollars for his defense of Overton, a case he has been working on since August, 1993. Peters said he does not know whether the county intends to fly in seven out-of-state witnesses or pay his three investigators.

“Who do you think is going to pay for these people?” asked Peters, who has contracted to defend cases for the county since 1980. “What idiot would extend Orange County credit now?”

Already, as one result of the bankruptcy, the public defender’s office is petitioning to have one high-profile, high-cost case, that of accused mass murderer Charles Ng, moved to another county. The Northern California case was transferred to Orange County earlier this year due to pretrial publicity and unexpectedly assigned to the public defender’s office.

The changes in how the county defends the poor comes as a result of a 29% cut--the deepest in the county--in the $12.7-million budget of the Alternate Defense Fund.

The fund pays for attorneys and investigators for defendants when the public defender’s office cannot take their cases, mainly because of conflicts of interest. Attorneys in the same office cannot represent more than one defendant in a case.

As a result of the cuts, the public defender’s office is splitting into three separate offices by Jan. 30 to avoid such conflicts. About a dozen current deputy public defenders will staff a second office. A third office of three attorneys will handle cases with three defendants, said Carl Holmes, chief deputy public defender who announced the changes.

Private attorneys will only be used now in cases with more than three defendants, which Holmes estimated to be fewer than 100 a year.

Deputy Public Defender Brian Ducker will head the public defender’s second office--what is now being called the alternate defender’s office, Holmes said.

The move is expected to result in a $7.4-million savings yearly.

Holmes said he hopes to hire private attorneys and investigators “left totally bereft” by the cutbacks to help shoulder the estimated 3,000 extra cases the new offices now must absorb in the next six months.

Despite the bad news, most of the judges said the public defender’s office was doing the best it could with mandated cuts that some harshly criticized. The judges, once again, raised the issue that Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi, one of three county officials charged with making post-bankruptcy cuts, should not have had a hand in chopping the budget of his courtroom adversaries.