South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

I have never really considered this, as we do not have public elections for the office of public defender in South Carolina; given the public's abhorrence for and general misunderstanding of criminal defense and why we need it, public elections could be a recipe for disaster. Imagine if a candidate for office runs on a campaign of being tough on crime, easy on cops, and easy on the public dime (what the public wants to hear) and then they are elected?

Republican Matt Shirk, recently elected as public defender in Jacksonville, Florida, has said that he will fight budget cuts, by seeking fees from indigent clients.

He also said rather than cut personnel because of budget constraints, he plans to seek service fees for clients who may eventually be able to pay for the work they are provided. As an example, he said, an unemployed client could be billed and asked to pay after getting a job.

Shirk also said he believes that hundreds of people who are appointed public defenders by judges can actually afford to hire private lawyers. He said one way to curb such abuse would be to use his investigators to determine whether clients have sources of income not revealed in court. He would then seek to have his office withdrawn from such a case.

He also said that he would not make sweeping changes to the office employees, but then weeks later apparently fired some of the office's most prominent attorneys.

Ten attorneys and three administrators found themselves suddenly out of a job, sacked Friday by the newly elected Public Defender Matt Shirk.

At least one of the attorneys told Channel 4 he believes the mass firings were a form of payback.

The firings came on the eighth anniversary of one of the office's most notable legal triumphs. On Nov. 21, 2000, taxpayer-supported public defender lawyers proved that a Jacksonville teen, Brenton Butler, was not guilty of robbery and murder.

The acquittal became the subject of a documentary shown nationwide on HBO and won an Oscar . . .

The mass firing occurred eight years to the day of when Butler was found not guilty after McGuiness and other attorneys who were recently fired proved the sheriff's department bungled the case.

McGuiness said the firings are payback.

"Mr. Shirk was supported by the Fraternal Order of Police and made certain representations to them, as I understand, that there would not be questions raised about integrity of policemen," McGuiness said.

Shirk has not returned calls inquiring about the firings.

As in the documentary referenced in the article, there are times when there cannot be effective representation of an accused person without raising questions about the integrity of policemen and investigations. McGuiness' allegations and Shirk's actions now call into question the integrity of the entire system for that county, and the wisdom of having public elections, as opposed to appointment or election by the bar, for the office of public defender.

Possibly Shirk is being painted in an unfair light, I don't know. Even if the campaign promises to the Fraternal Order of Police were never made, the significance of the firings seems to speak for itself. And, isn't there something seriously wrong with a chief public defender who is talking about having his office's investigators investigate his clients and who is vowing to fight budget cuts not by, well . . . fighting the budget cuts. . . but by attempting to squeeze all that he can out of his clients who have already been declared indigent and who are already being bled by the courts?