Title
Chief Administrative Office recommending the Board:
1) Conceptually approve the creation of the Office of the Alternate Public Defender as a new county department initially serving the West Slope;
2) Authorize the Chief Administrative Officer to extend Agreement 4108 with El Dorado Law for the provision of conflict defense services for period of three months; and
3) Authorize the Chief Administrative Officer, or designee, to negotiate up to two contracts for conflict defense services in the Tahoe Basin.
FUNDING: General Fund.
Body
DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
The El Dorado County Public Defender’s Office is appointed by the El Dorado Superior Court to handle over 4,000 cases per year, including adult and juvenile criminal cases, as well as contempt and conservatorship cases. When the Public Defender has a conflict of interest based on multiple defendants or based on prior representation, El Dorado County must provide a different attorney to any conflict client. Since July, 2016, the County has contracted with El Dorado Law to provide representation in conflict cases. El Dorado Law sub-contracts with individual local attorneys to provide these services.
Prior to contracting with El Dorado Law, the County contracted directly with 10-11 attorneys for conflict counsel. This was an extreme administrative burden, which included not only administering the contracts and processing monthly payments to attorneys, but processing payment for court-ordered services coming through 10 or 11 different law offices, to multiple vendors. In addition, this model provided the County with no ability to evaluate the quality of the services being provided. This model also made it very difficult to manage the budget for these services, as requests for case-related services were approved directly by the courts, and the County would often receive little or no notice of such services before receiving an invoice to pay. In an attempt to streamline the administration of the program ...
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