Court makes it tougher to get a court-appointed attorney in some situations

By adamg on Fri, 07/13/2012 - 11:10am

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that if you're facing criminal charges and want a court-appointed lawyer, you're going to have to prove you really are indigent - and that if you live at home, your parents or even significant others will have to chip in.

The state's highest court made its rulings in two separate cases today.

In one case, a woman facing 93 charges of not paying her workers pleaded indigency even though she and her husband owned three properties and had income of around $65,000 a year. Although the woman told a judge she could not sell the properties because of existing tax liens and a poor real-estate market, she offered no written proof of these issues.

The state's highest court ruled that if you want the state to help pay for your representation, you're going to have to do better than that - and submit some pretty detailed proof of why you can't find money for your own lawyer.

In a separate case, the court ruled a man living at home with his mother and girlfriend could not plead he was indigent when his mother was bringing home $85,000 a year and his girlfriend - with whom he was basically living as a spouse - brought in additional money.

The man had argued asking them to contribute to his legal defense would be unconstitutionally asking third parties to pay for his legal costs.

The court cited one state law that creates "a presumption that a parent who substantially supports his or her child over the age of sixteen will also contribute to the cost of the child's legal counsel" and said that the manner in which the man and his girlfriend were cohabiting was sufficient to create the equivalence of a marriage - under which partners are expected to help pay for legal costs.

This particular case was actually moot, since the man eventually did obtain his own lawyer, but the court said it decided to rule on it anyway, because of the issues it raised.

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Comments

Common Law Marrage

By anon on Fri, 07/13/2012 - 12:25pm.

This is interested. I had though common law marriage was no longer considered valid in MA. But this ruling would seem to contradict that and imply that common law marriage (or the rights and responsibilities it entails) still exists.

Would this ruling imply that an unwed couple living together for many years is entitled to spouses visitation rights should one of them get hurt? What about privilege from testimony and inheritance rights? What if the couple doesn't feel they are "married" and do not want to have to support one another?

What does this say for roommates who have shared an apartment for many years but otherwise have little connection to one another?

Agreed, anon.

By Dan Farnkoff on Fri, 07/13/2012 - 2:04pm.

That state law is troubling. Seems to suggest that common law marriage is only recognized in the narrow case of the state not wanting to pay for someone's defense. Otherwise it doesn't exist. The whole thing of having to prove indigency by a "preponderance of evidence" and all also seems to go against the presumption of innocence, placing an excessive burden on the defendant. I thought the right to counsel was a little more constitutionally fundamental than these opinions would suggest. In general, I haven't been all that impressed with the Mass SJC lately.
Incidentally, remember DiMasi? He actually got a lawyer of his choice paid for by the taxpayers. Not sure where that would fit with these decisions, but something that definitely did seem funny at the time.

Fico: Parents and "Spouses"

By Lunchbox on Fri, 07/13/2012 - 1:25pm.

First, the Court didn't really rule that cohabitating adults are the equivalent of spouses. The issue wasn't raised properly, so the SJC punted on it. It could (and likely will) be challenged in the future.

Second, the Court didn't hold parents of adult children who live with them are obliged to pay for the child's legal defense. Instead, it places the obligation on the child-defendant to prove "that he is not substantially supported by the parent, or that the parent is unwilling or unable to contribute" to the defense costs.

Or that's how I read Fico.

Personal experience

By Googie Baba on Fri, 07/13/2012 - 3:47pm.

I have some limited experience with this. When I was in law school, I worked one summer for a judge. I witnessed a case where the defendant had been pulled over and arrested for drunk driving. At the time of the arrest, he had been driving a Porsche that had bought earlier that day. His mother was in the back of the courtroom, and I noticed that she was holding a Chanel bag. He was a young man probably in his twenties.

I was surprised to see that he was being represented by a court appointed attorney. The only explanation that I could think of was that he must have been technically indigent. Maybe he wasn’t working but he clearly had access to funds. I think this is probably the type of situation that the court is trying to address.