A Weighted Caseload System is Coming
by Clayton Perkins, Capital Appellate Defender
It is a truism that public defenders have excessive caseloads. However, quantifying what is an excessive caseload is remarkably difficult. In 1973, 10 years after Gideon v. Wainwright, the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals put out the first and only national public defense caseload standards, set at 150 felony cases a year. Since then, developing updated caseload standards has happened at the state level.
Demystifying the NCDC Cult
by Angela McDaneld, Reno County Public Defender
Okay, NCDC isn’t a cult, but it certainly sounded a little bit like one when I told people I was going. I got one of two responses: “What the hell is NCDC?” or “Oh, my gosh. It will change your life forever.”
Sid Brush, Client Advocate For Life
by Meryl Carver-Allmond, Capital Appellate Defender
On March 18, 1984, Sid Brush moved her things into the Sedgwick County Public Defender office to start her job as office manager. She had worked with the chief, Richard Ney, in Illinois, and he called her out of the blue to ask for help setting up the new office. “I told him I didn’t have any experience running an office,” Sid explained, “But Richard said I knew how he liked things done and we’d make it work.”
Requesting Mental Health Treatment in Lieu of Prison
by Randall Hodgkinson, Appellate Defender
I recently represented a client convicted of a serious offense, who, from the record, appeared to have a severe mental illness. At sentencing, the trial attorney indicated the client had received a pretrial mental health evaluation that concluded the client’s mental illnesses did not support a request for mental disease or defect as an affirmative trial defense – a notably high bar to achieve. However, the attorney then did not present evidence of the client’s mental health at sentencing, and the client received a very long prison sentence.
Profile: A Conversation with BIDS Board Member Richard Ney
by Caroline Zuschek, Appellate Defender
Richard Ney and I start our conversation talking about people we know in common. He mentions Pam Sullivan, whom he hired during his tenure at the Sedgwick County Public Defender’s Office, but who left the agency for a while to work as the Chancellor for the Salina Dioceses. He says if he could pick any title to have, he’d go with Chancellor. “No one knows what it means,” he says, “but can you imagine making dinner reservations as a Chancellor?”