Would a public defender work in Lorain County?

Good lawyers take the time to investigate before making important decisions about a case. The Lorain County commissioners need to take a similar approach when deciding whether to create a public defender's office to replace the private lawyers now appointed to represent indigent criminal defendants. We were therefore pleased when Commissioner Dave Moore told us Tuesday that the commissioners hadn't made a final decision, despite extolling the virtues of the idea a few weeks ago. The key questions are whether the move would save taxpayers money and whether defendants would receive the same, if not better, representation. Moore said that he believed it would cost the county about $1.2 million per year to run a public defender's office. That would include a director, who also would be a lawyer, and a staff of five to six lawyers, a paralegal or two, and an administrative assistant. However, private lawyer Zack Simonoff, who takes court-appointed cases, argued in an open letter to Moore that far more staff would be needed. He wrote that state law required public defenders to have parity with prosecutors. To handle adult felony and juvenile cases in county courts, as well as to staff the county's five municipal courts, a public defender's office would need a minimum of 15 courtroom attorneys in addition to floaters, supervisors and an appellate attorney, Simonoff wrote. That doesn't even factor in a state rule that limits attorneys working for public defender's offices to handling a maximum of 150 felony cases per year. If Moore's figures are correct, the change could indeed save the county money, provided the state continued to reimburse the county for a portion of the cost, as seems likely. If Simonoff is right, the cost, even with the state reimbursement, could approach or even exceed what the county now pays. Between May 2024 and April 2025, Lorain County was billed nearly $3.66 million by about 70 lawyers who took court-appointed cases, according to figures Simonoff provided. The state reimbursed the county just over $3.02 million. That works out to a reimbursement rate of roughly 83 percent. In previous years, the reimbursement rate has been as high as 100 percent, Simonoff, who is treasurer of the Lorain County Bar Association, wrote. The reimbursement rate also has been lower in years past. For example, in 2011, when a different Board of Commissioners discussed creating a public defender's office, the reimbursement rate was about 30 percent, although it began climbing in the following years. (The county also examined the public defender idea back in 2002, but it didn't go anywhere then, either.) Moore told us that he would ask the state to pick up the full cost of the public defender's office, which he argued would be fair if it saved taxpayers the kind of money he thought it would. Simonoff, who opposed a public defender's office, raised some good points, including that many court-appointed attorneys are small business owners who contribute to the economy. He also pointed out that even in the 26 Ohio counties that have public defender's offices, roughly half of the cases are still assigned to court-appointed lawyers. We could see that being necessary for several reasons, including that the public defender's office doesn't have enough lawyers to meet demand, that potential conflicts of interest require courts to appoint private lawyers and that specialized representation is needed in complex cases, such as capital murder. Cost is indeed an important consideration, but it shouldn't be the only one. The sort of representation criminal defendants receive also matters, which means the quality of the lawyers working in a public defender's office matters. Would experienced criminal defense lawyers want the job or would it be mostly lawyers just starting out? Moore told us he expected lawyers working in the office would be paid about $65,000 per year plus benefits. Moore also told us he believed there were too many continuances granted in too many cases. He suggested many of those continuances were unnecessary. Perhaps some are, but there are plenty of reasons why a case might have to be pushed back, including a wait for lab results, plea-bargain discussions or other matters that take precedence for the defense lawyer, prosecutor or judge. Some cases, by their very nature, such as murder cases, can take years to work their way through the court system. Cases get delayed all the time, but it doesn't mean that anything untoward is happening or that lawyers are padding their time. As Moore acknowledged, a lot of questions need to be answered before a decision can be made. The public should get a better sense of the idea's workability when the Ohio Public Defender's Commission meets with the commissioners next week, but conversations with local defense lawyers and judges also should take place. The jury, as it were, is still out on whether a public defender's office would be right for Lorain County.