MCILS has put an immediate price tag of $13.3 million on its proposed fix. The money would increase court-appointed attorney’s wages from $80 to $150 an hour, a level that is expected to attract some lawyers back to the work.
The crisis in Maine’s legal defense system for the poor is worsening, with jailed defendants waiting as long as six weeks to be assigned an attorney and some parents of children who have been removed from home lacking a lawyer days before scheduled.
Maine’s highest court may hear arguments on whether defendants must show they were harmed by a delayed trial, taking on the right to “speedy trials” amid a historic backlog of criminal cases across the state. Maine is among the few states not.