A new reform will crack down on what The Olympian called “runaway legal costs
for violent sex offenders.”
Loopholes in the legal system allowed court cases to
drag on for years, with an average cost of $39,000 per inmate every year.
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| Special Commitment Center, McNeil Island Photo credit: DSHS |
Now, these aren’t regular inmates, filing lawsuits
that the state is somehow paying for out of taxpayer’s pockets.
McNeil Island is a special case, because these sex
predators have served their sentences and are now confined on the island because
they’ve been ruled a continued threat to society and not ready for release.
So they have legal rights, and it’s important for
the state to handle court questions right – because if we don’t, these violent
predators will win their cases and get out. They’ll be back in our communities
and at high risk to re-offend.
The new law balances the need to handle court cases
correctly – and keep violent sex offenders away from our kids and families –
while ending a payment system that was out of control.
Here’s what The
Olympian said about the details in the new reform:
Among other things, the legislation:
To read this post in Spanish, click here.
• Creates yearly contracts with about two dozen attorneys statewide to provide legal services for sexual offenders. The contracts will replace costly hourly billing by defense attorneys, fees that were hard to track and contain.Hourly billing was also a disincentive to bring cases to the courtroom in a timely manner. It is not unusual for continuances and delays on civil commitment trials to drag on for years. These types of delays are costly to taxpayers and clog up the court system.• Transfers the legal costs from the state Department of Social and Health Services to the state Office of Public Defense, which should improve fiscal accountability for the program.Under the old system, DSHS paid the fees for attorneys and expert witnesses, but had little control over the expenditures, which were authorized by judges and a maze of local officials before they reached the state agency.In another cost-savings move, the cost of prosecuting the offenders, including state psychological evaluations, will move to the state Attorney General’s Office from DSHS. Again, this should provide better fiscal control over costs.The changes in the process for both prosecuting and defending sexual predators was long overdue. Legal costs were averaging about $39,000 per year per offender.That was an outrageous cost born by taxpayers, a cost that should drop significantly with unanimous passage of Senate Bill 6493.
