MANSFIELD — Richland County commissioners are scheduled Tuesday to discuss what the county pays for attorneys appointed by the courts to represent indigent defendants.
Commissioners, who voted in August to increase those payments effective Jan. 1, are scheduled to discuss the issue at 10 a.m.
Commissioners voted unanimously to eliminate the current two-tiered system that now pays court-appointed attorneys $60 an hour for work done in the court and $50 for work performed outside the court.
That system, which has been in place for more than three decades, will be replaced with one that pays $60 per hour across the board for the legal work. It marks the first such increase in almost two decades.
Defense attorneys in March had requested an increase to $75 per hour for attorneys doing such work, both in and out of court. More than 30 local attorneys began a boycott in October, saying the planned increase was insufficient.
The decision to increase the reimbursement came after the state in July, in its new biennial budget, increased the amount of money it will reimburse counties for court-appointed attorney fees.
The state recommendation was to increase attorneys’ fees to $75 per hour across the board, which 13 counties now do, though none of those 13 are in north central Ohio.
In Ashland, Crawford, Knox, Morrow and Huron counties, as of November, court-appointed attorneys are paid $60 per hour for in-court work and $50 per hour for work done out of court, according to the Ohio Public Defender’s office.
When the local attorneys began the boycott, Commissioner Tony Vero said commissioners felt blindsided. He distributed e-mails from the presiding judge of Richland County Common Pleas Court and the county Bar Association saying they were in agreement with a planned review in December.
