Westport in Brief!
EverythingWestport.com
Saturday,
October 16, 2010
Quick Article Index . . .
Multi-lingual
candidate speaks straight-up to Westport ROMEOs.
District Attorney Sam Sutter argues his case
for funding priorities.
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Multi-lingual
candidate speaks straight-up to Westport ROMEOs. EverythingWestport.com Thursday,
October 21, 2010 photos/EverythingWesrtport.com
Left: F. George Jacome (center) with Joe
Crowley (left) and Tony Vieira. Now, as a medical interpreter at Fall
River’s Charlton Memorial Hospital, Jacome’s
clients represent 40% Hispanic and 60% Portuguese, a far different ratio than
a few years ago when 90% were Portuguese. The 53-year-old Fall River
independent candidate is running for State Representative - 8th Bristol,
a seat being vacated by Michael Rodrigues in his quest for the state senate.
Jacome was the guest of the Westport ROMEOs Thursday, and the seasoned
retirees’ grilling warmed him up for the Thursday night debate Westport’s
Paul Schmid. In a recent Fall River Herald
article, Jacome spoke as a conservative saying the path to job
creation comes through a better atmosphere for small businesses. He proposed
lowering the state’s business tax and creating a graduated tax rate that
would allow new businesses to keep more in their pockets during their initial
years of operation. Jacome’s opponent, Paul
Schmid of Westport, suggests
the way to create jobs in the region is by increasing the tourism industry.
He sees the district as full of “phenomenal assets not being fully realized,”
ranging from historic sites, the waterfront and agritourism.
There is more than just this one issue that separates the two
candidates. Read more. “I truly represent the southcoast,” the
plain spoke but erudite Jacome told the ROMEOs. “I didn’t read about the
challenges facing the district’s citizenry, I have firsthand experience. I
understand what it’s like working for a living.” Jacome is the Board president of the Atlantis Charter School in Fall
River, a school attended by his two children - a 12-year-old daughter and
8-year-old son. “With aid to education declining, we have had to make do with
less. Our state government could learn by our experience. They should do more
with less like the private sector.” For fiscal conservatives Jacome represents a breath of fresh air, even
if the fresh air is found in the basement of the state legislature, a
political wilderness inhabited by the party out of favor on Capitol Hill. Buy Jacome believes a fledgling coalition of like-minded candidates
and legislators could break the logjam of partisan politics that locks out
real reform in the state legislature. He advocates that being a state representative “should be a 12 month
job, and that legislators should be full time.” District Attorney Sam Sutter argues
his case for funding priorities. EverythingWestport.com Sunday,
October 24, 2010 photos/EverythingWesrtport.com
“As
a state we are spending much more on protecting accused indigent suspects
than we are on prosecuting them,” Sutter told the Westport ROMEOs where he
was a recent luncheon guest. “The funding for defending people is out of
control while the district attorneys are starving for dollars.” “20
years ago private defense attorneys were paid minimally ($50 per duty day) by
the state, more towards pro bono work than anything else, to provide
constitutionally protected legal counsel,” Sutter said. “It wasn’t set up to
be a fulltime job, rather an opportunity to provide public service to those
who needed it. Many of those public defenders were retired attorneys who
wanted to stay active.” Massachusetts
defense lawyers later formed an association of court-appointed attorneys and
lobbied the Governor’s office and Legislature to raise hourly rates and
institute a pay-by-the-hour reimbursement schedule that district attorneys
say now promotes lengthy trials and numerous continuances, resulting in
costly courtroom trials. The
association, now with over 3500 members, disagrees saying that the boost in
their funding occurred because court-appointed lawyers were at the time among
the worst paid in the country. They argue that the increased funding has
helped establish a good defense system, making Massachusetts one of the best
states in providing public defense. But
the cost to provide such capable public defense may be unsustainable. “Over
the last three years my office’s budget has been cut 10 percent,” Sutter
said. “We make painful choices every day over cutting expenses and retaining
key personnel. The assistant DA’s have heavy caseloads, averaging 35 at a
time and handling more than 400 a year, while a private public defender has
only six to nine, handling about 100 per year. The state’s Public Defender Division has
approximately 200 staff attorneys working in offices located across Massachusetts.
These offices
are involved in only 10% of the on-going cases while the private attorneys
defend 90%.” Assistant
District Attorneys in Bristol County have a starting salary of $38,000 base
pay per year, Sutter said. “Our budget last year was $6.9 million,” he said
adding, “that money supported 120 people. 90% of our budget is for salaries
and rent. I have reduced peoples’ hours and benefits (cell phone use
dramatically cut), and instituted furlough days to keep within budget.” Many
newly hired assistant district attorneys view the job as a stepping stone to
gain valuable experience in the courtroom for potential use in the private
sector. “It takes a lot of resources, time and training to bring these
assistant DAs along, and we don’t want to lose them because compensation is
better in the private sector,” Sutter said.
“In the last few weeks we lost five prosecutors, and we aren’t filling
some of the vacancies.” The
Massachusetts District Attorneys Association claims that the state spent $92
million for district attorneys to prosecute 300,000 cases, and $168 million
to finance public defenders in two thirds of these cases. The District
Attorneys are crying foul. Defense
lawyer Rosemary C. Scapicchio, speaking at a recent
State House press conference called by district attorneys across the state,
said the DAs numbers are “disingenuous.” “They are threatening the fair trial
rights of defendants.”
“Public
defense work in Connecticut is reverse of what we have here in
Massachusetts,” Sutter said. “90% of the cases involving indigent defendants
are handled by state attorneys, and 10% are handled by court-appointed
attorneys.” There
is no dispute that state agencies are in fiscal crisis, and things may get
worse after the November mid-term elections. Defense
lawyers fought back saying prosecutors’ budget numbers don’t reflect monies
received from federal grants, drug forfeitures, and contributions from
investigative agencies. Prosecutors say the Committee for Public Counsel
Services routinely overspends their budget, this year by $33 million alone. Sutter
told the ROMEOs that the system has encouraged some attorneys and court
experts to depend on the income from the state; and indeed records show some
assistant district attorneys have left their office, hung a shingle, and work
as court-appointed lawyers. Sutter
called for an equal distribution of funding to both prosecutors and public
defenders. He said the state’s budget priorities are out of sync with the
public good. “There
are three things we can do to manage this out-of-control public defense funding,”
Sutter told the ROMEOs. “First, our probation departments must do a better
job of qualifying who is truly indigent, who really needs a court-appointed
attorney. Investigate the claimant; determine income and assets. Actually investigate
the details for veracity. No more rubber-stamping an applicant’s request for
help. When a defendant can request a public defender, and then pay a $50,000
bail with cash, he or she is obviously not indigent.” “Second,
we need to have more full-time public defenders working for the state’s Public
Defender Division - 75%
with 25% of the cases going to private attorneys versus the 10% and 90% we
now have.” “Third,
there needs to be a dollar cap per case, a reasonable amount paid to a
court-appointed attorney that would discourage wasteful continuances and keep
a trial on a faster track,” Sutter said. “When
the state is spending twice the money to keep a criminal out of jail as it
does trying to put him in one, then it’s obvious the system is broken.” Some information in this article was obtained from a
Boston Globe article. - - - - - End - - - - - © 2010 Community Events
of Westport All rights reserved. EverythingWestport.com |
