Lawyers Ordered To Take Indigent Cases

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- Lawyers were ordered to represent defendants who cannot pay them in western Massachusetts Thursday.

NewsCenter 5's Amalia Barreda reported that attorneys had been refusing the cases in a dispute over compensation from the state.

Nancy Joseph of Holyoke, Mass., was released on personal recognizance Thursday after being held in jail for one month without a lawyer on a charge of shoplifting from a CVS drugstore.

During a hearing in Hampden Superior Court, the attorney from the Committee for Public Counsel Services talked to seven more defendants in custody for more than seven days without lawyers to make sure they now have court-appointed representation.

Even as she worked to sort it all out, Nancy Bennett, from the Committee for Public Counsel Services, expressed concern that people are still falling through the cracks because the shortage of defense attorneys means no one is keeping track of indigent defendants.

"When I received my first list from the court, there were 130 people on my list who were not on the court's list and there were 75 people on the court's list who were not on my list. And my list had been prepared based on information that we had asked for and received from the courts. So the discrepancy tells you that there must be people who are lost," Bennett said.

Attorney Thomas McGuire tried to refuse to take an appointed case for an unrepresented defendant in protest of low fees in Hampden Superior Court Thursday, but he backed off as Judge Peter Velis followed a recent ruling by Supreme Judicial Court Justice Francis Spina and ordered McGuire to take it.

"I'm going to order you to accept the assignment. You make take whatever respective measures you're aware of regarding the latest decision by Judge Spina," Velis said.

"Well it's kind of like indentured servitude," McGuire said after agreeing to take the case.

"Imagine how the defendant felt as he stood before the court and the lawyer said he did not want to represent him and then the defendant received that lawyer to represent him. Imagine the fears that he must feel," Bennett said.

McGuire said he has also been refusing court-appointed assignments because he already has a very heavy caseload from his private practice.

But saying no to Thursday's appointment would have required Vilas to report him to the state Board of Bar Overseers, as per the recent order of the state Supreme Judicial Court.