A former Albany County and City court judge has been named to serve as the county's Assigned Counsel Administrator.
For 2012 and 2013 Albany County paid private attorneys — they're called '18-B counsel' — more than $2 million for indigent defense work. Albany County Executive Dan McCoy explains the private lawyers are called in when for whatever reason, usually scheduling conflicts, the public defender’s office is unable to represent indigent people. He adds that from 2006 through 2011, the 18-B counsel billed Albany County upwards of $5 and a quarter million dollars for indigent defense work. "You have the public defender's office, and if there's a conflict, it goes to the alternate public defenders, and if there's another conflict there, then it goes to 18-B, and it's like when you see these great big drug arrests go down, and they come in, well then it's a huger conflict and we have to use the 18-B's. We have to pay it. We foot the bill. And we don't get re-imbursed for it."
Enter Judge Harry Rosen: No stranger to Albany, Rosen has had a long career in the judicial system. He has now been appointed Assigned Counsel Administrator by McCoy. Rosen will oversee the system by which private attorneys are assigned to certain cases. Rosen noted, "When the Attorney General decides, for instance, to arrest 40 people in the state of New York and prosecute it in Albany, well guess what? The public defender can take one. The conflict defender can take one. That leaves 30 more to be assigned out to attorneys."
McCoy believes bringing Judge Rosen on aboard will make a big difference. Rosen weighs in: “So I will be working with the judges in Albany County, to see if we can somehow come to grips with the fact that the expenses must get under control. Unless we want an upstate New York, Albany County and the rest of the western counties, that nobody can afford to live in anymore. And then there’ll be no people and we won’t have to worry about anything.”
The county executive stresses that he has followed his campaign promise: running the office as if it were a business. "If we make profit, then who makes out is the taxpayers of Albany County. This program is gonna do that. Judge Rosen has the experience."
Rosen will be salaried at $50,000 a year with another $20,000 allocated for his expenses. McCoy says Rosen will be responsible for developing standards, guidelines, training and supervision of attorneys on the Assigned Counsel Panel; he didn't give an exact figure of how much money will be saved on behalf of taxpayers.
Meanwhile, McCoy will present his county budget for 2015 next week.
