Phil Fretz is a Yutz, White Strikes Back and the TU’s Lousy Math

The last few days the debate over the state of Indigent Defense in the 4^th Judicial Circuit has heated up, briefly. First there was this little gem on the TU Editorial page by, presumably, the editorial board. Some of the greatest hits from this mercifully short waste of column inches:

"He says he hired lawyers with more experience, and at less cost, than those whom they replaced."

"His office has defended more clients in court than it did in previous years."

"Shirk seems to be interested in looking out for both his clients and the taxpayers."

All indications are that this was based on a press release or an interview with Mr. Shirk (there are points where they mention some sort of statement). Much of what was discussed is addressed later in this article, by Mr. White himself, but one thing is for sure incorrect. The senior attorneys with "more experience at less cost" is just an outright falsehood. Let us look at the "first five" who were fired almost immediately. Al Chipperfield, Ann Finnel, Pat McGuinness, Waffa Hanniah and Pat Kyser had a collective legal experience of 136 years, an average of 27.5 years, with only the last 2 being under 30 years. Those hired to replace them Refik Eler, Frank Shoemaker, Quentin Till, Al Perkins and Will Durden rack up at 110 years, an average of 22 years, but of course, this is misleading since Mr. Till has been practicing for 40 years and no one else has been practicing for more than 30. In fact, the second highest attorney, Eler would be third from the bottom in the previous list, barely edging out Ms. Kyser.

Now my first thought on where this fawning piece of fluff came from was TU Columnist Phil Fretz. It mirrored his style and he is known to be sympathetic to Shirk (they go to church together at First Baptist Downtown). It was confirmed the following day when he posted the The 'Matt Shirk formula' for balancing city budget where he offers up the following helpful advice:

"Mayor John Peyton, meet Matt Shirk. Please. And members of the City Council, you need to be there, too. The agenda for this little session: Figuring out how to cut the city's budget. Shirk is the public defender. His office has three sources of revenue from the state. One - called the due process appropriation - pays for things like expert witnesses and psychiatric evaluations. That money was reduced this year. Shirk could have demanded that the funding be restored, using all sorts of demagoguery about innocent people being denied an adequate defense. He didn't. Instead, he sent a letter to vendors, politely telling them that, henceforth, they would be paid 6 percent less. One vendor quit. The others stayed, Shirk's spokesman says. In times like these, there is no need for timidity in cutting budgets."

He is correct, there is little room for timidity in cutting the budget but his example fails on two points.

1. A Public Defender fighting to maintain his funding so he can maintain the resources which are already bordering on the edge of effective representation is never "demagoguery", it is doing his job.
2. Mr. Fretz fails to note that while Mr. Shirk may have had success in re-negotiating the vendors, there were also cuts which were made in the area from which the funding was obtained. Namely the restriction on psychological evaluations for clients. Whether or not this effects the effective representation of their clients is debatable, but to ignore this while lionizing the young PD's budget skills is dishonest at best.

Following was a fine rebuttal from what I would assume to be a thoroughly peeved Bill White:

COLUMN: Public defender: Another view of the office

Posted: March 23, 2010 - 2:05am

Letters from Readers

The impression left by the Times-Union's recent editorial on Public Defender Matt Shirk is he has made great strides in efficiency, economy and public engagement.

In fact, every item mentioned in the editorial is either wrong or simply indicates a continuation of policies and actions in place before the election of 2008.

Shirk has added an expensive layer of administration that did not exist before January. He hired a chief assistant at a six-figure salary. I had no chief assistant.

Shirk hired two staffers who help with public relations. One became chief of staff, at about $50,000 a year - working a half-time position. The other came on board at $80,000. I had no PR staff.

Shirk put on two former JSO officers as chief investigators. Each of them makes more than my one chief investigator, who was demoted and had a five-figure pay cut.

Shirk's campaign criticism that I had too many homicide attorneys has been replaced with an ad for more homicide attorneys, and a statement by his full-time PR person that the office will have 10 or

11 capital trial-qualified attorneys by January. I had eight.

Shirk criticized raises I gave to senior staff. Just a couple of months ago, he gave a big raise to an administrator who has been in the job for a little over a year.

Yes, the office has defended more cases, the result of the case- filing policies of the new state attorney. These cases are now being handled by fewer attorneys, each of whom (except for Shirk and

some other senior attorneys) is carrying an excessive caseload.

Video conferencing was a cost-saving innovation that began with my administration.

We instituted the policy to stop purchasing law books over six years ago. The paperless office is simply a trend toward which all public offices have been moving for years.

I applaud Shirk for keeping these projects moving forward.

Our office was the first public agency to engage the Sulzbacher Center for the Homeless, serving meals and providing legal counseling to the homeless.

Each year, our office provided cold-weather clothes to the Sulzbacher and raised significant amounts of money for local and national charities.

Maybe I should have hired PR staff to get that word out.

BILL WHITE, former public defender, Neptune Beach

In all, the Times Union failed in this, as it failed to thoroughly in the entirety of the 2008 election.