© 2016 UNC Chapel Hill School of Government.
1
REPORT
Trial Judges’ Perceptions of
North Carolina’s Office of
Indigent Defense Services:
A Report on Survey Results
March 2016
Findings at a Glance
The UNC School of Government created an online survey and distributed
it to Superior Court and District Court judges on behalf of the North Caro-lina
Office of Indigent Defense Services, a state agency that provides legal
services to criminal defendants, certain civil respondents, and juveniles in
delinquency proceedings who cannot afford to hire a lawyer. Based on the
responses of 135 judges, we found that judges had a generally positive view
of the agency’s performance with respect to its overall administration of
indigent defense, the timeliness and responsiveness of its office staff, and its
provision of constitutionally effective representation, among other topics.
Judges’ narrative responses included praise for the agency but also raised
concerns about the appointment process for private assigned counsel, who
supplement public defenders in some districts and are the primary providers
of indigent defense in others; administration, management, and supervision
of both public defenders and private assigned counsel; and indigent defend-ers’
performance due to inexperience, unavailability, and excessive work-load.
Recognizing that hourly rates paid to private assigned counsel were
reduced in 2011, 80 of 119 judges responding to a question about those rates
associated their reduction with impacts on the quality of indigent represen-tation;
59 of 66 who answered a follow-up question indicated that the quality
of representation had suffered, primarily due to fewer experienced attor-neys
being willing to take indigent cases. There is also some indication that
judges who have experience with contract counsel are less satisfied and are
more satisfied in District Court districts that house Public Defender offices.
David Brown, MPP
Monica Yelverton, MPA