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NYCLA Files Motion to Lift Stay of Court Decision Directing Payment of Higher Assigned Counsel Rates
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New York County Lawyers’ Association 14 Vesey Street New York, NY 10007 www.nycla.org |
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| Norman L. Reimer
NYCLA President-Elect |
(212) 267-2600 | |
| Kelli J. Stenstrom
Davis Polk & Wardwell |
(212) 450-4348 | |
| Pamela B. Yaeger
NYCLA Communications Manager |
(212) 267-6646, ext. 225 or pyaeger@nycla.org | |
NYCLA Files Motion to Lift Stay of
Court Decision Directing Payment of
Higher Assigned Counsel Rates
Nearly 40 Associations Urge Governor, Mayor and
Legislative Leaders to Withdraw Their Opposition
NEW YORK, March 19, 2003 The New York County Lawyers’ Association today filed legal papers with the Appellate Division, First Department seeking to vacate the automatic stay of the permanent injunctive relief granted in the Judgment issued by New York State Supreme Court Justice Lucindo Suarez on February 5, 2003 in favor of NYCLA and against the State and the City of New York declaring the rates of compensation paid to assigned counsel unconstitutional as applied in New York City. If granted by the appellate court, the motion would lift the stay of Justice Suarez’s permanent injunction order directing the State and City to compensate assigned counsel at the rate of $90 per hour. In the Judgment, Justice Suarez concluded that there exists “the grim reality that children and indigent adults in the New York City [courts] are at unreasonable risk of being subjected to a process that is neither swift nor deliberate, and fails to confirm the confidence and reliability in our system of justice.”
Simultaneously, 38 bar groups representing tens of thousands of lawyers and advocates for children’s rights issued a joint statement urging the Governor, the Mayor, the State’s legislative leaders and the Attorney General to join in and to not oppose the motion, so that the longstanding crisis in indigent representation can be resolved. The annexed statement reads, “After 17 years of inaction, our public officials should no longer ignore their constitutional duty to protect the poorest and most vulnerable citizens in New York.” The groups noted that by allowing the stay to remain in place, the “status quo perpetuates a catastrophe that daily denies countless New Yorkers access to justice,” and called upon the State and City to end “the tactics of delay.”
The statement, endorsed by bar groups representing lawyers in virtually every region in the State, was also endorsed by the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Sanctuary for Families, and CASA Advocates for Children. (The entire list of signatories is annexed.)
NYCLA President Michael Miller described the broad endorsement of the joint statement as “an historic development,” and “compelling evidence of the growing consensus that this crisis must be resolved once and for all.” Mr. Miller further stated, “It is unconscionable that our legislative and executive leaders continue to use legal technicalities to block the reform that they all agree is urgently needed. It is honorable and right that they now drop their opposition to the enforcement of the new rates so that justice can be restored to the poor people whose lives and families are at risk.”
JOINT STATEMENT BY 38 BAR AND CIVIC GROUPS
There is a long-standing crisis in New York’s system for providing representation for indigent children and adults in the family and criminal courts. For more than 17 years, by failing to increase the rates paid to assigned counsel, New York has perpetuated a system that ignores its constitutional obligation to the poor and results in widespread denial of counsel, delay in appointment of counsel, and less than meaningful and effective representation. The magnitude of this crisis has been recognized by virtually every responsible public official. As long ago as November 2001, Chief Judge Judith Kaye called the crisis a “catastrophe” that threatens the very foundation of the justice system.
On February 5, 2003, New York State Supreme Court Justice Lucindo Suarez, after conducting a three-week trial with 41 witnesses and 435 exhibits, declared unconstitutional the rate-setting provisions of the assigned counsel statutes. The judge found that the “posturing and procrastination of the executive and legislative branches have created the assigned counsel crisis impairing the judiciary’s ability to function.” Specifically, he concluded that there exists in New York “the grim reality that children and indigent adults in the New York [courts] are at unreasonable risk of being subjected to a process that is neither swift nor deliberate, and fails to confirm the confidence and reliability in our system of justice.” This dire crisis is the direct result of the Legislature’s failure to provide adequate compensation to assigned counsel. Accordingly, Justice Suarez granted a permanent injunction setting the rates at $90 per hour, the same rate that is paid to equivalent assigned counsel in federal courts in every state in the nation.
As a consequence of the filing of notices of their intention to appeal this decision, the State and City have triggered an automatic stay of the injunction. By doing so, the State and City seek to perpetuate the status quo. And that status quo perpetuates a catastrophe that daily denies countless New Yorkers access to justice. The same tactic of delay was employed last year to prevent Justice Suarez’s order granting a preliminary injunction and setting an interim rate of $90 from taking effect.
Today the plaintiff has filed a motion seeking to lift the automatic stay so that immediate relief can finally be granted. We now call upon the leaders of New York State and New York City, including the Mayor, the Governor, the Legislature and the Attorney General, the lawyer for the people of the State of New York, all of whom have recognized this crisis to withdraw their opposition to plaintiff’s position. It is time that the leaders of our legislative and executive branches of government act in accordance with their words. After 17 years of inaction, our public officials should no longer ignore their constitutional duty to protect the poorest and most vulnerable citizens in New York. As Justice Suarez wrote, “equal access to justice should not be a ceremonial platitude, but a perpetual pledge vigilantly guarded.”
Signatories
| Allegany County Bar Association | New York Criminal Bar Association |
| Association of the Bar of the City of New York | New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty |
| Bronx County Bar Association | to Children |
| Brooklyn Women’s Bar Association | NYS Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers |
| Broome County Bar Association | NYS Defenders Association |
| CASA Advocates for Children of NYS | NYS Trial Lawyers Association |
| Clinton County Bar Association | Oneida County Bar Association |
| Delaware County Bar Association | Ontario County Bar Association |
| Erie County Bar Association | Queens County Bar Association |
| Genesee County Bar Association | Sanctuary for Families |
| Jamestown Bar Association | Schenectady County Bar Association |
| Kings County Criminal Bar Association, Inc. | Southern Tier Defense Attorneys Association |
| Lesbian & Gay Law Association (LeGaL) | Suffolk County Bar Association |
| Livingston County Bar Association | Thompkins County Bar Association |
| Monroe County Bar Association | Ulster County Bar Association |
| Mount Vernon Bar Association | Westchester County Bar Association |
| Nassau County Bar Association | Westchester Women’s Bar Association |
| Niagara County Bar Association | Women’s Bar Association State of New York |
| Network of Bar Leaders | Yorktown Bar Association |
| New York County Lawyers’ Association |
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The New York County Lawyers’ Association was founded 95 years ago as the first major bar association in the country that admitted members without regard to race, ethnicity, religion or gender. Since its inception, NYCLA has pioneered some of the most far-reaching and tangible reforms in American jurisprudence and has continuously played an active role in legal developments and public policy.