NORWICH – In an ongoing effort to minimize local government expenses that are inflicted by a growing number of state mandates, the Chenango County Board of Supervisors is calling on state government to fully fund the county’s indigent legal defense system.

A resolution that was unanimously passed by the board last week describes the benefit to local taxpayers if the state were to pick up the whole tab for the county’s indigent defense system. According to that resolution, “the shift of costs for this state mandated service has become so imbalanced that the counties of New York now cover more than 80 percent of the cost burden.”

In light of the cost of indigent defense services to counties, the resolution alo cites a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling (Gideon v. Wainwright) which says the right to counsel for someone charged with a crime is fundamental, and that the state must provide a lawyer for those who can’t afford one – an expense the state pushed onto counties in 1965.

Board members also point to a 2007 lawsuit (Hurrell-Harring et al. v. State of New York) which argued that the state’s failure to provide adequate funding, resources and oversight to the public defense system threatened to deprive impoverished defendants their constitutional right to meaningful and effective assistance of counsel. That lawsuit recently entered into a settlement which will have a fiscal impact on the state and counties.