New Hampshire’s court system is implementing a new pilot program to verify the incomes of people who request a court-appointed attorney, after some public officials questioned whether the current system could be defrauded.
Both the U.S. and New Hampshire Constitutions require the government to provide a lawyer for people accused of serious crimes that carry the potential for jail sentences if they can’t afford to hire an attorney. In New Hampshire, defendants have previously completed a form declaring their assets and income, but the courts have had no straightforward way to verify that information.
This week, the judiciary is entering into an agreement with New Hampshire Employment Security, a state agency that maintains confidential wage information provided by employers, to determine whether someone is eligible for a court-appointed lawyer.
Under state law, there is no absolute threshold for a defendant to prove they are able to hire an attorney. Instead, judges are required to compare “the defendant’s assets and incomes with the minimum cost of obtaining qualified private counsel.”
Information sharing will begin in just two courthouses to see whether the program is effective.
Jessica King, the Judicial Branch’s general counsel, told the Executive Council on Wednesday that the courts will closely monitor how the system works.
“Right now, the program is focused on: is there a problem here, and identifying that problem,” said King. “That’s the first step.”
While there is no data available on whether people were abusing the current indigent defense system, Executive Councilor John Stephen has repeatedly pushed the courts in recent months to implement some form of monitoring for people who request an attorney. He praised the new arrangement and the data it may yield about whether or not people may mislead the courts about their ability to fund their own legal representation.
“We want to make sure that people are providing the courts with the right and correct and honest information, because we keep seeing more and more millions of dollars for public defenders to represent under their constitutional right,” said Stephen.
The initiative will roll out in Brentwood Circuit Court and Rockingham Superior Court. Four employees in the judiciary will have access to an Employment Security database, where they can compare defendants’ financial disclosures with historical wage data submitted by employers.
The New Hampshire Public Defender, a private nonprofit, provides the bulk of indigent defense representation statewide but has faced daunting caseloads in recent years, prompting the courts to raise payment rates to entice private attorneys to accept cases as well.
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