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Michael D. Pitman reports about Butler County, Ohio, politics, county government, countywide issues and Butler County people just like you for Cox Ohio Publishing (including the Hamilton JournalNews, Middletown Journal and several weekly papers in Butler County). He wants your suggestions and questions for more news stories. Leave a comment for him here or e-mail Michael at Home > Blogs > Butler County News and Issues > Archives > 2008 > July > 31 > Entry
Spaeth: Current attorney system is ‘wasteful’
At today’s commission meeting, county judges and attorneys squared off about a controversial plan that could save tax payers more than $180,000 by cutting dozens of court-appointed lawyers.
First, commissioners refrained from making a final decision about the plan. They said a decision should be made in the next few weeks.
Attorney Greg Howard, who is also the president of the Butler County Bar Association, said today, “What they’re asking to do would not provide effective representation for the indigent population in Butler County.”
Howard said attorneys would not be able to provide adequate representation because the proposed system would spread them too thin.
Judge Keith M. Spaeth said this morning that the current system “rewards inefficiency, incompetency and unscrupulous attorneys, and it penalizes the most competent attorneys, which are the majority.”
Spaeth said there have been “a wide array” of complaints about defense attorneys from judges and the prosecutor’s office about lawyers’ tardiness, billing mistakes and how cases are assigned.
Howard said he would rather see problem attorneys — those “who are fudging their billing” — taken off the list of nearly 50 court-appointed attorneys on an individual basis.
Judge Michael Sage said he has developed a plan that will save $182,428 by reducing the number of defense attorneys who can get contracts from roughly 50 to 14. Read that story here.
Sage says the current system leaves room for abuse by attorneys. Read that story here.
Today’s story features a response from the state’s Office of the Public Defender, who is critical of the judges’ plan.
What do you think about the public defender system?
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By Cathy
July 31, 2008 12:28 PM | Link to this
You have to be kidding. A Judge in Corrupt Butler County alleging bogus billing by more corrupt attorneys? If Judge Spaeth has personal knowledge of bogus billing I believe he has a duty to report this immediately to the county prosecutor so those corrupt attorneys can be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, (I believe this is called theft!). Wouldn’t that give him reason to exlude those attorneys from the judge’s 50 or so selection of attorney’s available… Incredulous that a Judge in Butler County would actually come forward and say there is corruption going on.. Don’t these judges have a duty to report these theiving attorneys to the Bar Association for disciplinary action? Of course they won’t. The good ol’ boy network in Butler County will setup their own good ol’ 14 lawyers on the pretense of saving 180K a year.
By The Godfather
December 4, 2010 3:51 AM | Link to this
Spaeth calling anyone else corrupt is the pot calling the kettle. He is the most corrupt and incompetent judge Butler county has ever known.If he had any honor at all he would resign, confess and have himself and all those corrupt lawyers prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.