Today's Knoxville News Sentinel has a three-part investigative report on taxpayer funded legal services in Knox County. According to the sensational headlines, local defense attorneys are "in the hot seat" for questionable billings, including some that have billed (gasp!) over $100,000 for defending indigent clients in criminal cases.

The articles suggest, by way of typical innuendo, that there may be some fraudulent billing going on because the costs are out of line with other metropolitan areas in the state.

The reporter only mentions way down deep in one article that the public defender's office is understaffed as compared to those counties (and has filed lawsuits to that effect), meaning that the courts have to assign more indigent cases to private practice lawyers. And you would never be able to hire them for what little the state pays them.

And every attorney contacted had records to back up their billings.

One of the articles talks about setting fixed fees for handling a set number of cases and contracting it out to the lowest bidder. Local judges and attorneys cite numerous problems with the idea. They prefer to let judges decide which lawyer can best represent a defendant based on their familiarity with lawyers in their court and the types of cases they handle. Letting a bureaucrat in Nashville decide based on the lowest bidder circumvents justice.

Another cost-cutting example involves lawyers who defend clients from court ordered institutionalization being pressured by the state to not even visit their clients in the hospital to prepare for their hearings. The state says these cases are routine and all the same, so court-appointed lawyers don't need to spend so much time on them. The state basically wants these lawyers to rubber stamp whatever charges or action the state brings.

The reports are supposedly prompted by concerns about the state's growing costs to provide legal representation for indigent defendants. There isn't any discussion of whether the poor economy, failing schools, lack of social services, deadbeat dads, or crime related to rampant prescription drug addiction might be larger concerns than "greedy" lawyers who come in to clean up the resulting mess in court.

The state is looking to trim the $37 million spent on indigent legal services. That's 0.1% of the state's $29 billion budget. Perhaps there are bigger fish to fry in other departments.

Further, in reading all three articles I see no mention of how much money is spent on police investigations and district attorney prosecutions. My guess is that it's exponentially more than $37 million.

Criminal charges are titled "The State of Tennessee versus." The defendant walks into court with the odds already stacked 6,000,000 to 1 against him. The prosecution has the full weight and resources of the government behind them. That's why the U.S. Constitution guarantees an individual's right to competent defense, and the state is obligated to provide it if the defendant can't afford it. (You know, one of those "unfunded mandates" we hear so much about.)

Also not mentioned in the article is the reporter's obvious disdain for defendants and ongoing feuds with the lawyers who defend them. In fact, public defenders asked to be taken off a high profile murder case because they received death threats, partly fueled by sensational reporting on the case and violent, racist comments on the newspaper's website. Given the reporter's history, one wonders what really prompted this attack on the local defense bar.

ARTICLES:

• Cost for concern: Knox County spends most in state on indigent legal services

• State eyes legal bills: Knox's $100,000 club has a dozen attorneys in the hot seat

• On the defensive: Plan to farm out indigent representation faces attorneys' resistance