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Show Commissioners Raise Objections To Davis Public Detcnder The county commission raised objections to a proposal to create a legal defenders office, under county jurisdiction. ASSISTANT County Attorney Attor-ney Loren Martin made the proposal to the commission. He has been working on a grant application for the past few months. The state has approved the $42,000 project with an offer to cover one year's service with the exception of $12,500 in county funds. THE COUNTY has been paying approximately $21,000 per year for indigent defense. Attorneys have been appointed appoint-ed for each case on an individual in-dividual basis. "It is difficult to see the need for doubling the expenditures," expen-ditures," said Commissioner Stanley Smoot. "It has been something less than adequate but acceptable as far as we are concerned," he said. MR. MARTIN said he was looking at it from the point of county interest, although he has proposed to resign his position and head the new office, of-fice, if it is established. "I'm afraid if we don't establish es-tablish something like this we will be heading toward some centralized state legal defenders office without local control," he said. "FOR THEM to dangle this money and then specify what we have got to do is against my better judgment because we will double what we are now with no assurance for the future," said Commissioner Smoot. Commissioner Smoot objected ob-jected to the possibility of establishing es-tablishing an office with government funds and then allowing the attorney who headed it to engage in private practice after the 40-hour-per week commitment. MR. MARTIN said it would not be difficult to make a rule prohibiting private practice within the realm of the office. "I don't question mat we need a better service but I don't like this vehicle," said the commissioner. The commission com-mission talked of the possibility pos-sibility of contracting the project to a private attorney, but this is not a provision of the grant. THEY WILL meet with the director of District Two's Law Enforcement Planning Agency, Don Cavalli before the decision is made. |