Marion County defender faces financial troubles

INDIANAPOLIS -- Marion County's chief public defender said his office lacks money to assign lawyers to defend parents faced with losing custody of their children.\nBut judges have ordered Chief Public Defender David Cook to provide representation, setting up a showdown in the county's financially-strapped court system.\nDespite Friday's order from judges, Cook gave no indication he planned to back down from his announcement Thursday that he would refuse to assign lawyers in parental-rights cases.\n"It's not that I'm unwilling to comply with the court order. I am unable to comply with the order," Cook said. "I don't have attorneys to assign to these cases."\nA three-judge panel overseeing the county's 32 courts gave Cook 90 days to "seek and obtain" funding for additional lawyers.\n"Implicit in that is the need for the City-County Council to respond to that request for funding," said Superior Court Administrator Mark Renner. "If not, then the court has to decide what to do next."\nLast year, six part-time public defenders handled a record 405 termination-of-parental-rights cases in Marion County.\nThose lawyers are overwhelmed, Cook said, and have no time to meet clients, interview witnesses or prepare for trial.\nThough risking the possibility of being jailed for contempt of court, Cook said his office could not assign lawyers in termination-of-parental-rights cases until he got more money.\nOn July 1, Cook said he would begin turning away indigent clients in juvenile delinquency cases.