What It Means to Lead the Office of Indigent Defense Services

By now, most people in the North Carolina indigent defense community know that Mary Pollard, the executive director of the North Carolina Office of Indigent Defense Services (IDS), has decided to retire at the end of August this year. IDS is therefore looking for a new executive director. You can see the job posting here. I want to use this post to recount the impact that IDS and its leadership have had on indigent defense in our state. I will add many more words and shed even more tears about Mary’s departure another time.

I arrived in North Carolina in 1991 to work as the first “public defender guy” at the School of Government, then the Institute of Government. My job was to teach, write, and consult on criminal law, particularly for public defenders. Back then, there was no IDS. Indigent defense was embedded in the North Carolina Administrative of the Courts, which was responsible for the entire judicial system, including judges, prosecutors, magistrates, clerks of court, and other staff. There were eleven individual public defender offices scattered around the state, including in the more populous areas of Charlotte, Greensboro, Durham, and Asheville, but not in Raleigh, Winston-Salem, or Wilmington. Many other counties had no public defender office. Private attorneys appointed by the court handled the majority of indigent criminal cases, but the pay was inconsistent from county to county; and when the state indigent attorney fee fund went dry months before the end of the fiscal year, the attorneys went without pay until the next fiscal year. At the Institute, we held two conferences a year for public defenders but provided no other training for public defenders, no training for private attorneys doing indigent criminal work, and no training for the many other attorneys representing poor people facing significant deprivations of their rights, such as in involuntary commitment and parental rights proceedings. I do not mean to point fingers. That was the structure of things at the time.

In 2000, the General Assembly passed the Indigent Defense Services Act, landmark legislation creating an independent commission, the Commission on Indigent Defense Services, to oversee the provision of counsel in indigent cases in North Carolina. The Commission, a 13-member appointed body of attorneys, judges, and others with experience in indigent defense, is the governing body of IDS. The Commission acts through IDS staff, led by its executive director.

Only three people have served as executive director in IDS’s 26-year history—Tye Hunter, Tom Maher, and Mary Pollard. Under their leadership, along with the efforts of IDS staff and countless attorneys inside and outside IDS, indigent defense has changed enormously in North Carolina. Here are some things that stand out to me:

• With the approval of the General Assembly and support of local stakeholders, IDS has established several more public defender offices, now 27 in all covering 60 counties. The offices provide legal representation in over half of the indigent cases in North Carolina.
• In the rest of the cases, in districts with and without a public defender’s office, private attorneys continue to be appointed and handle indigent cases. After a legislatively-imposed cut several years ago, IDS has made progress in raising the rate of pay for appointed work by developing and presenting detailed financial and caseload data to the General Assembly during the annual state budgeting process. IDS also has expedited and modernized payment to appointed attorneys by developing an on-line fee application portal for payment in criminal cases.
• IDS has established statewide offices to represent, and to assist other attorneys who represent, capital defendants, juveniles alleged to be delinquent, parents in abuse, neglect, and termination of parental rights cases, and respondents in involuntary commitment proceedings. Regional defenders support attorneys handling noncapital cases around the state, and IDS’s Forensic Resource Counsel provides support in the challenging area of forensics. The Office of the Appellate Defender, the one statewide office that existed before the establishment of IDS, has continued to grow and, in addition to cases handled by its attorneys, oversees a roster of private attorneys around the state who handle indigent appellate cases. IDS also contracts with North Carolina Prisoners Legal Services to provide legal services to inmates to implement their constitutionally guaranteed right of access to the courts.
• In partnership with IDS, the School of Government now offers an annual curriculum of in-person and online training programs for public defenders and assigned counsel in all aspects of indigent defense. Offerings include, among others, training programs for new and experienced defenders, a week-long Trial School, conferences for juvenile, parent, and commitment attorneys, and webinars on new cases and legislation. The School of Government also publishes manuals, bulletins, practice guides, blogs, and other resources of interest for attorneys who represent indigent parties.

For the last quarter of a century, IDS has done the proverbial job of rebuilding the plane while flying it, enhancing indigent defense in North Carolina while ensuring legal representation in hundreds of thousands of cases each year. What challenges will IDS and the next executive director face? What will they accomplish? You can learn more about the executive director’s responsibilities in the job posting here. Timothy Heinle at the School of Government is facilitating the search process for IDS. If you have questions about the process, you can reach him at heinle@sog.unc.edu.