Advocates push Hinds County Board of Supervisors to provide emergency funding for public defenders

The emergency funding request of $350,000 is from the Hinds County Public Defender's Office. The Board of Supervisors will consider the request during their meeting on March 2. 

"Since taking office in 2020, I have dealt with an average of two staff vacancies during my entire tenure, and I have had nearly 20 attorney resignations," Gail Wright Lowery, Hinds County public defender, wrote in a recent Mississippi Today guest essay. 

At a Tuesday press conference with Defend Mississippi, André de Gruy, the state public defender, broke down some of the challenges that public defenders in Mississippi face, including pay disparities with prosecutors.

"The entry-level ADA [Assistant District Attorney] is making more than the senior lawyers in the Hinds County Public Defender's Office," said de Gruy.  "The county funds 11 of the 14 positions: the highest county-funded position is a little over $80,000."

"Starting salaries, remember: $120,000 in the prosecutor's office, $65,000 in the Hinds County public defender's office." 

In Hinds County, though, public defenders struggle even compared to their colleagues in other counties.

"Across the state, the average public defender makes about $95,000 a year," de Gruy said. "In Hinds County, the county-funded positions are about $73,000."

And that in turn hurts recruitment and retention.

"We've got these persistent vacancies," said de Gruy. "There are only seven lawyers in the office, seven of 14, who've been there more than six months."

He told multiple stories about law school graduates and attorneys in Mississippi passing up opportunities with Hinds County because of those pay disparities — like an intern who took a position in another county that offered $15,000 more. 

"Not long after [Wright Lowery] missed out on that hire, she had another vacancy to fill, because a young lawyer took about a $20,000 raise to move to Greenville, Washington County," said de Gruy. "Washington County can take people from Hinds County." 

"I never thought that that would be something happening in Mississippi."

That effects the whole system: for example, case backlogs which have contributed to overcrowding at the Raymond Detention Center. A federal receiver was recently installed following of allegations of understaffing, as well as overcrowding, a homicide and overdoses. 

Last year, the Board of Supervisors declared a state of emergency in the center, saying was at 400 inmates over capacity. Reporting from the Marshall Project found that many of those held in the center are there with no indictment and no attorney to move their case along. 

Nathan Fennell with the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center spoke to those sorts of situations at Tuesday's press conference.

"Research shows that adequate and timely representation expedites pretrial release for the folks that shouldn't be in jail," said Fennell. "It helps arrested people maintain their employment, provide for their families and improves public safety."

CJ Lawrence, an attorney speakinng for Defend Mississippi on Tuesday, addressed the long-term community effects on the flip side. 

"We even see the pressure that it places on the facilities as well, right, with overcrowding: so these are things that are true realities," Lawrence said. "But there's a direct impact on mental health and on physical health, which also places a toll on the economy as well because the healthcare system is impacted by the outcome of people simply just sitting in jail day after day." 

Backlogs and pay are problems across the state, but the issues are really felt by the counties as the primary funders of public defenders. 

"I think the bottom line is, unless the state changes how public defense is delivered, the county's just gonna have to step up," de Gruy told MPB News. 

The Hinds County Public Defender's Office says they need about $1 million to get salaries on par with the District Attorney's office and get needed support staff. 

MPB News reached out to several county supervisors and the Hinds County Public Defender's Office for comment, but did not receive a response before publication.