2000 Annual Report #6

According to "The Courts of Nebraska 2000 - Annual Caseload Report" prepared by the Administrative Office of the Courts/Probation, 1,293 felony cases were filed in Lancaster County Court in 2000, representing a 3% increase from the 1999 filings. The number of new felony cases assigned to the Lancaster County Public Defender's Office in 2000 was 990 (9 Major Felonies and 981 Felonies) compared with 989 cases in1999 (13 Major Felonies and 976 Felonies). This means that 77% of the felony cases filed in 2000 required appointed counsel in the first instance.

The 2000 Major Felonies opened included 3 First Degree Murder cases, 1 Second Degree Murder Case, 2 Manslaughter cases, 1 Motor Vehicle Homicide case, 1 Conspiracy to Commit First Degree Murder case, and 1 Attempted Second Degree Murder case. During the same year, the office closed 5 First Degree Murder cases, 1 Second Degree Murder case, 2 Manslaughter cases, 1 Motor Vehicle Homicide case, 1 Attempted Second Degree Murder case, and 2 Kidnapping cases. The amount of attorney time devoted to all felony cases remained constant in 2000, representing 46% of the total attorney time recorded for cases that were closed in 2000. Below, we compare the number of new open felony cases by type of felony with the attorney time recorded for closed felony cases by type of felony. The category of Major Felonies includes all types of homicides and attempted homicides and kidnapping cases:

There was a total of 61 jury trials in Lancaster County District Court in 2000 and 32 of them (52%) were felony cases. Of those 32 felony jury trials, 22 (69%) were public defender cases, 5 (15.5%) were assigned counsel cases, and 5 (15.5%) were privately retained attorney cases.

For felony cases closed by the public defender's office in 2000 by plea, dismissal, or trial, 32% of the cases were dismissed (this includes pre-trial diversion cases and cases dismissed because they were transferred to juvenile court). In 32% of the cases, the clients pled guilty to misdemeanor charges and in 33% of the cases the clients pled guilty to felony charges. In 3% of the cases, there was a trial, either to a jury or to the bench. These dispositions are displayed in the following pie chart:

Shawn Elliott and Paul Cooney, both attorneys in the felony division, were promoted to Attorney II during 2000. Shawn Elliott has been with the office since June of 1996 and Paul Cooney joined us in July of 1996. Monica Ross left the felony division as a paralegal to become the office manager upon the retirement of Mary Gehr in September of 2000.

During the year 2000, the Misdemeanor Division consisted of two full time attorneys, two part time attorneys (one shares a felony caseload), and two paralegals. Cases filed by both the City Attorney (under the Lincoln Municipal Code) and by the County Attorney and the UNL Prosecution Clinic (under the Lincoln Municipal Code and state statutes) are assigned to the Public Defender's Office. The law requires the appointment of counsel in misdemeanor cases if:

1. the accused is indigent, and
2. a jail sentence is to be imposed.

The charge categories of Drunk Driving, Assault (including Domestic Violence and Violation of Protection Orders), Driving on a Suspended License, and Theft, accounted for 72% of all of the misdemeanor cases opened by the office in 2000.

In 2000, the office opened 3306 total misdemeanor cases, representing a 4% decline over the 1999 openings (cases filed by the City Attorney decreased by 12%) returning to the 1998 levels) and cases filed by the County Attorney increased by 6%. Despite the overall decline in new opened cases, the office actually recorded a 3% increase in the amount of attorney time devoted to misdemeanor cases closed in 2000.

This is most probably due to the increase in the number of County Attorney filed cases which historically have required more than twice the attorney time on average as the City Attorney filed misdemeanors. For example, the Domestic Violence cases filed by the county attorney require, on average, three and a half times the number of attorney hours to resolve compared to an assault case filed by the City Attorney.

As can be seen in the chart below, the number of new misdemeanor cases has zig zagged up and down over the years, depending upon which judges were in the appointing courts for a particular time period. The clear trend of the County Attorney filed cases has been up for at least the last 5 years.

Susan Tast remains with the Misdemeanor Division, representing clients in cases filed by the City Attorney. She is assisted by Jed Rojewski, a paralegal. The County Attorney filed Misdemeanors were handled by Joe Nigro, Julie Hansen, and Richard Goos, who was a part time attorney in the office during 2000. Dennis Keefe and Scott Helvie assisted with some of the jury cases. Angela Franssen was the paralegal for this docket.

According to the report from the Separate Juvenile Court of Lancaster County, a total of 1,984 petitions and supplemental petitions/motions were filed by both the City Attorney and the County Attorney in 2000. This represents a 2% decline in filings from the 1999 figures. 599 of those filings (30%) were made by the City Attorney in Law Violation cases. The rest were filed by the County Attorney in all juvenile case types.

In the Abuse/Neglect cases, the Separate Juvenile Court reports 167 new petitions filed in the year 2000 (compared to 161 in 1999), although the Lancaster County Attorney says that number should be 171 (compared to 155 in1999). In any event, the Lancaster County Public Defender's Office was appointed in 126 new Abuse/Neglect cases during the year. The contractors were also busy. The four private contractors received 157 appointments and Nebraska Legal Services received 118 appointments. There were a small but unknown number of private attorney appointments also. This means that for every new case filed there were approximately 2.4 attorney appointments made. For the Public Defender's Office these cases require significantly more attorney time per case than any other type of juvenile case, and they have the longest case life.

In the Law Violation cases, the City and County Attorney combined report that they filed 1,674 new and supplemental petitions/motions in 2000 which was only a .5% decrease from the 1999 filings. The Lancaster County Public Defender's Office was appointed in 1017 Law Violation cases (new and supplemental filings) in 2000 which represents a 10% decrease from our 1999 figures. This also represents 61% of the total Law Violation filings for 2000 (our juvenile Law Violation indigency rate). The nature of the Law Violation cases changed very little in 2000 from previous years, with the exception of drug offenses. 9% of the Public Defender's new cases were drug offenses, the highest figure in the history of the office (in 1999, only 3% of the Law Violation cases were drug offenses). In terms of dispositions for closed Law Violation Cases, the number of Dismissals was down from the previous year (at 38%) while the number of Informal Hearings (59%) and Formal Hearings (3%) were up from the 1999 figures.

While the overall time devoted to juvenile cases closed in 2000 was up 3%, it is interesting to note that the case mix is changing. For example, of all the juvenile cases closed in 2000, the attorney time recorded for Abuse Neglect cases represented an 87% increase from that recorded for cases closed in 1999, while the amount of attorney time recorded for Law Violation cases decreased by 2% in that same time period. This means that in one year, the Abuse/Neglect cases went from representing a little over 9% of all attorney time devoted to juvenile cases to 17%.

Below is a chart displaying the four types of juvenile cases in the public defender's office first by the number of cases opened in 2000 and then by the percentage of Juvenile Division attorney time devoted to those case types:

The Juvenile Division Staff did not have any changes in 2000. Margene Timm, the Juvenile Division Team Leader, spent considerable time working on two major projects outside of her caseload. The first was her work on a planning committee for a juvenile drug court which should be operational in early 2001. She also participated in the Stakeholders Group for Families First and Foremost (F3), which is a new federally funded program designed to serve seriously emotionally disturbed youth in Lancaster County. Margene was assisted in the Juvenile Division by attorneys Kristi Egger-Brown, Reggie Ryder, and Jennifer Villebro. Angela Onuoha is the paralegal for Abuse/Neglect Cases and Donna Garwood is the paralegal for Law Violation and Status cases.

Historically, the Lancaster County Public Defender's Office has utilized a portion of one Felony Division attorneys' time to represent clients before the Lancaster County Board of Mental Health. With the crisis in the felony division workload in 1999, that changed. In 2000, the two Felony Division Team Leaders and the Elected Public Defender began rotating responsibility for the Mental Health cases. Later in 2000, the Juvenile Division Attorneys were also worked in to the rotation. For a number of reasons that we will discuss later in this report, this coverage has not worked satisfactorily. The number of new Mental Health cases climbed to 406 in 2000, an office record. In addition, the number of cases requiring a contested hearing to resolve has increased by 10% in recent years. Because of the number of cases and hearings, there has been continuing discussions of going to twice weekly hearings, which could create scheduling problems.

The Miscellaneous category of cases consists mainly of Felony Revocation of Probation matters and Fugitive From Justice cases, both handled by the Felony Division attorneys. The number of new cases has remained fairly constant the past three years, averaging 146 new cases per year.

In September of 2000, Mary Gehr, longtime Administrative Services Officer for the Lancaster County Public Defender's Office, retired from that position. Mary had been in that position for 20 years providing us with her assistance in a variety of ways. She was always willing to help, no matter how busy, and she always kept her sense of humor. Mary was our friend, co-worker, and "mom". She always made sure that we had treats, expertly prepared by either herself or her family under her supervision. A reception was held in the public defender's office in her honor and it was attended by a large group of people who worked with Mary in City and County government over the years. Her family attended the Lancaster County Board meeting immediately before her departure to see Mary receive the " Commissioner's Award of Excellence" for her service to the county.

The newest member of our staff, Mayme Keagy, also resigned from our office staff in 2000. Mayme was our "Runner" and she performed her duties very well. Mayme got married in the fall of 2000, and she and her new husband moved to Madison, Wisconsin where he found new employment.