Weber County only has itself to blame for the bad publicity it’s about to receive.
County officials recently terminated a contract with Samuel Newton, an appellate attorney who had represented indigent defendants in the county for the past seven years. Why? Because Newton had the gall to publicly complain that the county wasn’t sufficiently funding the appeal of a capital murder case. Newton withdrew from the case after he suffered stress-related health problems caused by handling the capital murder case with inadequate funding.
Legal ethics require that Newton zealously represent his client. Legal ethics also require that Newton be free of undue influence by parties who oppose his client’s interests.
In the letter that terminated Newton’s contract, Weber County Commissioner James Harvey wrote, “While we have appreciated your hard work and dedication, this past year you have made various representations to the media and to the court that have been untruthful and harmful to the county’s reputation.”
It is not Newton’s duty to protect Weber County’s reputation, especially if the county’s actions are making it harder to provide fair and competent representation. The county bemoans Newton’s efforts to build relationships with his clients. Commissioner Harvey admitted the county just “wants to know ... if the appropriate decision has been made.”
The very fact that the county doesn’t want its defense lawyers to create relationships with clients reveals the need for attorneys to do just that. The appellate process is not a rubber stamp. At least it shouldn’t be.
Even worse, the county commission consulted with the county attorney before ending Newton’s contract. There is an inherent conflict of interest when the prosecution gets to choose who it goes up against.
The fact that a county can micromanage a defense attorney’s case by limiting interaction with the client and placing a cap on hours spent demonstrates the problems created when cities and counties fund their own indigent defense programs.
The Constitution requires that criminal defendants have access to adequate representation. Utah delegates that responsibility to cities and counties. The Legislature attempted to improve the system by creating the Indigent Defense Commission in 2016, which aims to provide adequate funding to severely underfunded county indigent defense programs across the state. But Weber county didn’t ask the commission for funds to help with its program. Perhaps the Legislature needs to re-imagine the commission’s role for counties that prefer quick and easy, and cheap, indigent defense representation.
Joanna Landau, executive director of the Indigent Defense Commission, says that the public defender function is “a constitutional obligation that should not be funded or controlled by prosecutor or judiciary.”
She’s right.