Macomb County criminal defense attorneys get pay increase – Macomb Daily
Court-appointed criminal defense attorneys have received a substantial pay increase under a new per-hour fee schedule after years of being underpaid.
The Macomb County Public Defender’s Office last month began paying “roster” defense attorneys $192 per hour for capital cases, $144 per hour for mid-level felony cases and $132 per hour for low-level felony cases, according to county Public Defender Tom Tomko. Capital cases include murder, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping, carjacking.
The office converted from its antiquated per-event fee schedule that criminal defense attorneys have been complaining about for decades was far too low. Pay went as low as $50 per event to a high of up to $500 a day for a capital case, although attorneys taking capital cases to trial frequently received additional pay upon request.
Longtime attorney Joe Kosmala said the increase provides relief for attorneys and should improve the quality of representation of indigent defendants.
“We finally got a significant increase, the first in many, many years,” Kosmala said. “It was a long-time coming and well-deserved for the people that do this work. There have been times I was paid less for a trial than the expert who came to testify for one day.”
He said some high-quality attorneys have removed themselves from the list and gone to only retained work due to the low pay, he said.
The rates were approved by the state and took into account other rates in the area, Tomko said.
Tom Tomko, Macomb County public defender. MACOMB DAILY FILE PHOTO
The higher pay should free up attorneys to possibly handle a smaller caseload and provide more attention to each case, attorneys say.
Approximately 250 roster attorneys take on a majority of the indigent defendant cases in the county.
However, the Public Defender’s Office is taking on an increased caseload with a doubling of its budget in 2024 and an expansion of its offices and staff.
“There’s a lot of exciting things happening,” Tomko told the Board of Commissioners at his department’s recent budget hearing. “We’re doing good things. We’re expanding.”
The office in the next year will have an increase from nine lawyers to up to 30 attorneys and the support staff from six to up to 17, Tomko said.
Staff public defenders in Macomb recently unionized and are slated to receive a salary next year from $91,000 to $117,500 for more experienced “staff II” attorneys and $68,500 to $88,500 for “staff I” attorneys. Tomko receives a salary between $105,000 and $150,000, the chief trial lawyer earns from $110,000 to $142,500, and the principal trial lawyer makes between $100,000 and $129,500.
The goal of the office to handle about 30% of the total indigent caseload.
The addition of the staff attorneys will come after the recent completion of an expansion of the Public Defender offices in the Clemens Center on Market Street near North River Road in Mount Clemens. The square-footage jumped from 1,360 square feet to 9,600 square feet, Tomko told the Board of Commissioners at his recent budget hearing.
The Public Defender Office’s budget will increase from $10.6 million this year to $21.7 million in 2024, with the state paying most of it — $18.3 million — and the county kicking in $2.3 million, if approved as expected later this month. The county is contributing $1.55 million this year.
The funds include paying for the staff and roster attorney attending their required 12 hours of continuing legal education.
“We verify each of those 250-plus attorneys have completed those 12 CLE hours,” Tomko said. “We want to make sure that there is good quality representation for each of the indigent defendants they represent.”
Tomko told the board he also plans to start a fellowship program for attorneys and social workers in which people in those fields can work here temporarily. He said Macomb would be one of only a handful of public defender offices in the state to offer fellowships.
Kosmala, who has done retained and appointed work for over 40 years, noted the importance of criminal defense attorneys in carrying out the tenets of the U.S. Constitution.
“It’s what we do in our country,” he said. “We learn from a young age that someone is innocent until proven guilty.”
He said he is there to ensure the government affords a defendant their rights.
“Even if I’m representing a guilty person, I’m representing everybody,” he said.
Defense attorneys also can work on plea deals to obtain the proper conviction for the actions committed, noting defendants are often over-charged.
“In many cases, the plea bargain gets the right results,” he said, and the defendant “pays the consequences for what they actually did.”
Creation of the office coincided with new standards implemented by the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission in an effort to improve the representation of criminal defendants.
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