Delegates support changes to OPD board 

Posted: 8:22 pm Tue, February 2, 2010
By Brendan Kearney
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer

ANNAPOLIS — A plan to dramatically increase the size and geographic representation on the Board of Trustees of the Office of the Public Defender, and to change the way the state public defender could be removed, went unopposed and unquestioned at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday.

The bill, which comes months after the current three-member board fired Nancy S. Forster in August, would provide for a 13-member board — one from each district and a chair appointed by the governor. It would entrust the governor with the power to remove the public defender, only on the recommendation of that board, and only for cause.

All signs seem to point toward the passage of some version of HB 122. Thirty-seven delegates, including sponsor Del. Curtis S. Anderson of Baltimore, have pledged their support. And all written testimony submitted supports the bill, with amendments.

Even the current board chairman, T. Wray McCurdy, who stands to lose influence on the volunteer body, and Forster, who argued with McCurdy about numerous aspects of the OPD in letters last year and in the press since Forster’s firing, agree a lightly edited version of the plan is the way to go.

“This has to come through this committee,” McCurdy said, looking out at the panel of lawmakers seated in a horseshoe around him.

He promised to submit his amendments, which will include an adjustment to the way county bar associations nominate board members to the governor, in writing by the end of the week.

Anderson seemed more interested in the idea of “greater geographic representation” than he did in the procedure by which a state public defender could be removed, which he called a “slight tweak” in the existing law. Anderson, a criminal defense attorney, said he has seen the “OPD in action” from Cumberland to Easton and noticed the agency’s challenges vary from county to county.

“These differences ought to be represented in the board of trustees as well,” said Anderson.

McCurdy said inviting input from around the state, in the form of the district public defenders, is something he and fellow board members Margaret A. Mead, of Baltimore, and Theresa Moore, of Prince George’s County, did before picking Paul B. DeWolfe Jr. as the leader of the indigent defense agency in December. He also said the expanded board would conveniently replace regional advisory boards which he said have “atrophied” in recent years.

While Forster didn’t testify, she did submit a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr. with four proposed amendments. She thinks the number of board members necessary to recommend the removal of the public defender should be specified; that the governor cannot reject recommendations from the local bar associations; that former prosecutors, law enforcement officers and judges should not be permitted to serve on the board; and that board members should “have demonstrated commitment to indigent defense” — a reference to McCurdy, whose motivations have been called into question.

For its part, the Maryland State Bar Association “would prefer” if membership on the board were determined by judicial circuit rather than by public defender circuit, according to its written testimony. The lawyers group also requested that its president appoint a member of the board.

In its written submission, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland argues the bill leaves too much control over the board in the hands of the governor and suggests a more diverse appointing authority.

Anderson, who had a busy afternoon introducing various bills to the committee, hinted at another possible amendment: giving DeWolfe two deputies, instead of the one he has currently.

McCurdy also supports this idea.

Other bills before the committee Tuesday were an effort to give the OPD access to various state agencies’ internal computer systems to better check eligibility of prospective clients and a bill to include non-handgun firearms in a state law that penalizes repeat violent offenders.