BAR ASSOCIATION DISCUSSES PUBLIC DEFENDER FUNDING

The Missouri Bar Association is promoting legislation that would allocate another $6 million to the state's public defenders system, allowing indigent people with competent legal advice.

At a breakfast Tuesday morning with members of local and regional media outlets, members of the bar association and three judges of the Missouri Supreme Court shared information about the objectives and current policies of the state's criminal justice system.

"All 20,000 lawyers in the state of Missouri are required to be members of the state bar association," explained W. Dudley McCarter, current president of the Missouri Bar Association. "For us, as a group, to take a position on legislation, it has to meet strict criteria and serve to advance the state's criminal justice system."

McCarter reviewed about eight bills being supported by the bar association, including increased funding for legal services for indigent people.

"We have determined that four out of every five indigent people are not receiving minimal legal services in Missouri," McCarter said. "So we have drafted legislation authorizing an additional $6 million to be allocated to the public defender's system.

"In doing so, we are joining about 25 other states who divert money from its general revenue funds to the public defenders system for the same purpose," he continued. "I know the notion of giving more money to public defenders is not always popular with the public, but it is necessary to ensure that the criminal justice system in this state continues to work effectively."

Other legislation backed by the association concerns the automation of the legal system which, as McCarter stated, "would bring the Missouri legal system into the 20th century."

The $40 million-$50 million plan calls for all court records to be computerized on a uniform network, which could be accessed at any time by attorneys, judges and even media outlets.

Supreme Court Judge William Ray Price Jr., said that the bulk of the system could be financed through hook-up and user fees, and an additional $7 per case assessed to regular court costs.

"If you can save an attorney a half an hour trip to the courthouse to look up a file, then it's well worth the $7 you'd pay in court costs," Price said.

McCarter added: "I've traveled across the country meeting with other bar association presidents, and the technology they have is often much more advanced. There is no reason for us to continue operating the way lawyers and judges did in the 1800s and early 1900s."

The Missouri Supreme Court, which has been historically opposed to increases in court costs, supports the $7 increase in favor of the new technology, McCarter said. In fact, former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward D. Robertson Jr., was instrumental in drafting the legislation that would make the increase in court costs a reality.

Among other things discussed at the breakfast was the current experiment being conducted in 11 circuits throughout the state to allow video and photographic cameras in the courtroom.

For almost two years, jurisdictions throughout the state have been experimenting with film crews and rules regulating their behavior inside the courtroom.

"One of our biggest problems right now is that we're not getting enough film crews who are interested in coming into the courtroom," said Price. "I'm worried that we will not have enough information to come to an appropriate conclusion when the experiment is over in December 1994."

Price said that there have been a couple of isolated disagreements between the media and the courts since the experiment began, but nothing that would negatively affect the outcome of the study.

Robertson added: "Television stations are kind of like children. You tell them they can't go into a closet over and over, but once you finally let them go in, they don't want to come back.

"Television shows like `Perry Mason' and `Matlock' have distorted people's perception of what the courtroom is really like," Robertson continued. "People think that every case is an hour long and near the end, some woman in the front row jumps up and yells, `I did it!~'

"That's not the case at all," he said. "The media has to know what to expect when they come to the courtroom."