photo by: Journal-World File

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center, 111 E. 11th St., is pictured on Wednesday, April 8, 2020.

Douglas County has received a second proposal from a group of attorneys interested in providing public defender services for people who are accused of crimes and cannot afford attorneys.

As part of its meeting Wednesday, the Douglas County Commission will discuss a process to handle the proposals. Both proposals are from groups of attorneys seeking county funding to provide public defender services for people accused of misdemeanor offenses.

The county received the most recent proposal for misdemeanor public defense on Oct. 1 from a group of local attorneys under the title Douglas County Defense Services, according to a county staff memo to the commission. The county previously received a funding request to provide misdemeanor public defense from another group of attorneys under the title Kansas Holistic Defenders.

Douglas County already provides funding for the public defense of misdemeanor cases, while the state funds felony cases. Public defense is currently provided through a panel of private defense attorneys who are appointed by the court to take on individual cases. When it made its proposal, Kansas Holistic Defenders said it would provide the service using a different model that offered broader, holistic support to those accused of crimes.

The county did not solicit proposals for the services, but in response to the request from Kansas Holistic Defenders set aside $425,000 in its 2022 budget to support misdemeanor public defense. Some local defense attorneys have expressed reservations about Kansas Holistic Defenders’ proposal, and the Douglas County Defense Services group includes some of those same attorneys. The $425,000 allocation in the commission’s budget has not been finalized.

County Administrator Sarah Plinsky states in the memo that county staff is recommending that the commission establish a process to review the proposals and determine how to approach misdemeanor indigent defense moving forward. Plinsky notes that the county did not formally solicit proposals, and states there is no established protocol for reviewing proposals outside of the budget cycle.

Staff is recommending that the commission review both proposals during its meeting on Nov. 17, and that the commission could decide which proposal to proceed with that day or make the vote as part of a subsequent meeting. Plinsky states that commissioners can structure the review in any way that they want and that in addition to the proposals submitted, staff can ask each group to provide additional material before the review.

The Douglas County Commission will convene at 4 p.m. Wednesday for its study session and at 5:30 p.m. for its regular agenda at the county courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St. Residents can participate in the meeting in person, virtually or via phone, and more information about those options is available at douglascountyks.org/commission/meetings.