Jan. 17—After multiple emergency funding requests for Maine's indigent defense system, the governor's budget proposal includes $17 million to the agency's biannual budget to boost pay and hire more public defenders.
But some say the proposal doesn't go far enough to meet the state's constitutional obligation to provide legal aid to the poor.
Gov. Janet Mills proposes spending $13.2 million on a tiered reimbursement system, with attorneys paid from $80 to $150 an hour depending on the type and complexity of their cases. Mills also proposes spending $3.6 million to hire 10 new public defenders on top of the five Maine hired last year.
That still pales in comparison to the $62 million requested last summer by the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services, which called for raising attorney pay from $80 to $150 an hour across the board and adding dozens more public defense positions.
Executive Director Justin Andrus said Tuesday he was pleased to see new funding for MCILS in the governor's budget. However, he said the $62 million budget is "what's necessary."
The larger proposal would set up a more robust public defender's system like those in other states, with four offices and more than 40 public defense attorneys and support staff such as investigators, social workers and paralegals. Two of those offices would handle yet-to-be-tried criminal defendants in Aroostook County and a central county, likely Androscoggin or Kennebec. A third office would handle appeals, while a...
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