Here & Now

Court-Appointed Lawyers to Get Raise

Frederica Freyberg:
In all the state budget action that is mostly argued along partisan lines like funding for the UW System or K-12 or the DNR, with transportation yet to come, rare agreement on a matter that some experts have said was bringing the state close to a constitutional crisis: the funding for appointed public defenders. This week the Joint Committee on Finance passed a budget measure that would hike the pay for state appointed lawyers to $70 an hour from the current $40 hourly rate. The measure also increased pay for assistant district attorneys and added positions. It did pass on party lines because Democrats wanted the defender pay rates to be indexed to inflation, which was not included in the Republican plan and some Milwaukee County prosecutor positions were grant-funded instead of funded with general revenue. But the larger issue is something on which both sides can agree and the defender pay increase got positive reaction from the highest court official in the state, Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Roggensack. And she joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Pat Roggensack:
Oh, you’re very welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:
So it is not usual that a chief justice would weigh in on a budget matter but in your mind, how important is it that we boost pay for these appointed public defenders?

Pat Roggensack:
I think it’s absolutely critical. It’s critical in a couple of senses. First from a very fundamental basis, we have to be able to have qualified lawyers for those who cannot afford to pay for private rate attorneys and we’ve been having a very hard time finding people who are qualified that will work at $40 an hour. Lawyers are in short supply in the northwest part of the state at any hourly rate and at $40 an hour, it’s almost impossible to find them. But, you know, each person has a constitutional right to be represented by competent counsel when they’re charged with a crime. And so there was a problem here. In addition, it’s a matter of effectiveness and efficiency for the court in that the court system doesn’t function well if you don’t have qualified attorneys for people who are charged with a crime. So I began to work with other people on this as a package, talking to legislators privately, talking to — actually I talked to the governor before he gave his State of the Budget Address and he did put it in his State of the Budget Address. I was very pleased with that.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now, the $40 rate was set in 1995. Why has it taken so long to address this?

Pat Roggensack:
I don’t know. I honest to goodness I don’t know. But when it was asked in the last budget to raise it and nothing happened and at that point in time I thought, I’m going to get involved because it really matters to the entire court system. Of course it matters in a constitutional sense to the defendants who are needing counsel and competent counsel but it matters. The system does not function well if you can’t bring someone charged with a crime quickly before a magistrate, that’s a problem.

Frederica Freyberg:
And so that’s a practical effect on the defendants but what effect did this have or does this have on the system itself and even the counties?

Pat Roggensack:
I think it has a big effect on both, okay? To go to the counties, the Legislature also increased the amount of money that they give to the courts in the budget that I submitted because there’s an amount of money that we simply pass through to the counties and that’s because the counties really are our partners. You know, those circuit courts are maintained. They’re state courts but they’re maintained in partnership with the counties so because we as the Supreme Court had upped the rate that the counties have to pay to $100 an hour, there was going to be a big, big increase. Now with the rate up to $70 an hour, it isn’t going to be as necessary to travel to the $100 an hour rate. It really affects the functioning and it affects the counties, too.

Frederica Freyberg:
How far do you think the $30 an hour hike will go toward attracting more of these private, appointed attorneys in places like you’re saying, northwest Wisconsin?

Pat Roggensack:
Yeah. You know, the $70 an hour wasn’t a rabbit that we picked out of a hat. I had Kelly Thompson come in and talk with me about this problem when we didn’t get anything for it in the budget last go around. And I said, “What would you pay a new attorney hired as an in-staff person in your office?” And she told me and I said, “Well, if you monetize the benefits, what would the dollar an hour be?” And it was 70. So that’s how we came up with the $70 an hour figure.

Frederica Freyberg:
And Kelly Thompson is the head of —

Pat Roggensack:
She is the state public defender. That’s right.

Frederica Freyberg:
So would you have wanted this indexed to inflation?

Pat Roggensack:
You know, that’s always a good thing but the Legislature is always chary of binding another Legislature to something they decide today. I don’t know of anything that they’ve indexed to inflation.

Frederica Freyberg:
As you’ve said, you worked to get this measure passed. What’s been the early reaction?

Pat Roggensack:
Early reaction from —

Frederica Freyberg:
From the system, from the courts, from the judges.

Pat Roggensack:
I think it’s been very, very favorable. It’s not partisan at all. I think everybody realizes the time has come and so it’s moved forward. We have a Democratic governor. We have a Republican Legislature and they are, I think on all sides, committed to doing this out of fairness and out of a concern that the courts function fairly for all the people in Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
Chief Justice Roggensack, thanks very much.

Pat Roggensack:
You’re very welcome.