New statewide public defender system aims to improve justice for the indigent

By Maggie Plummer

Under the Montana Public Defender Act, a single statewide system of public defenders has replaced what was considered a patchwork of appointed public defender attorneys.

The idea is to make sure that Montana's indigent have access to justice equal to those who have more money.

The new system is supervised by an independent commission and administered by the Office of State Public Defender (OPD) through regional offices.

In other words, things should be getting better for a low-income person in Montana who gets into trouble.

The new system will impact tribal members who end up in District Court in Polson. The idea is to provide better legal representation for them, if they qualify as "indigent."

The OPD's central office is in Butte.

Polson has an office that's part of the Region 1 OPD office in Kalispell.

Additional regional offices are situated in Missoula, Great Falls, Helena, Butte, Havre, Lewistown, Bozeman, Billings, Glendive and Miles City.

Region 1 also has Regional Deputy Public Defender John Putikka, who has already handled some cases in Lake County District Court.

The Lake County office managing attorney is Noel Larrivee, who is originally from Hot Springs.

He is one of the office's two attorneys who have tribal lineage. The other is staff attorney Eldena Bear Don't Walk, who told the CKN she's "a Mitchell." The other two staff attorneys in the Polson office are Britt Cotter and Timothy Goen.

Larrivee graduated from Hot Springs High School. Of French Canadian and Salish descent, he noted that his grandfather, Arthur Larrivee, ran the stagecoach between Pablo and Polson. His great great grandmother Emily Browne was full blood Salish, he said.

Larrivee is most recently from Missoula.

In an interview, he explained that on all of Montana's reservations but this one, felonies are prosecuted in federal court. But here, because of the compact with the state, felonies are prosecuted in state court (called district court).

Tribal Court handles misdemeanors, in general, and the state handles felony cases.

"Over the last 20 years," the attorney said, "there's been a trend or goal to improve legal representation for indigents, regardless of race."

A 2001 lawsuit, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) versus five counties and the state of Montana, illustrated the need to raise the standards for public defenders across the state.

The 2005 legislature passed Senate Bill 146, which did what Larrivee terms an "extreme makeover" of Montana's public defender system. Before this change, court-appointed counsel was contracted with the county and then with the state.

"In some respects it will be a model for the country," he commented.

The public defender commission created Standards of Performance that address contact with clients and continuing education (members of the commission include attorneys, legislative representatives, organization members representing the indigent, racial minorities, people with mental illness and other groups; commission appointments are for staggered three-year terms).

"Montana is the only state that has adopted all the standards and then some," Larrivee explained, adding that the standards document is a whopping 100 pages long.

The state public defender office presides over four primary areas:       • criminal cases;
      • juveniles in Youth Court;
      • representing indigent parents in abuse and neglect proceedings; and
      • involuntary commitment proceedings to the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs.

Asked what exactly has changed, Larrivee pointed out that now, indigent clients will receive services from full time defense attorneys committed to doing only that client's work, with no competition from their private practice.

"We have one goal: competent and effective representation," he said. "We have no other competing interest."

The state public defender attorneys are paid on a state matrix and are state employees. Larrivee said there's an impressive clerical and technical support system statewide for the attorneys.

"This would not have been possible before computers," the attorney remarked. "Now we're sharing resources and issues across the state. This network of resources never existed before."

That network includes the central office, a training officer, and numerous opportunities for continuing legal education. "We have trainings on mental health law, on abuse and neglect, and so on," Larrivee said. "Plus we have monthly VisionNet teleconference sessions on specific topics."

He added that there are still contract attorneys, in addition to the four OPD staff attorneys working in Polson. Locally, those contract attorneys are Ben Anciaux and Larry Nistler.

Asked about the costs of this new OPD system for Montana's taxpayers, Larrivee said that although there have been "transition costs" related to switching to the new system, by July of this year it should cost less. "It's about providing better representation, at less cost, in theory," he added.

The Polson OPD team opened its new permanent Polson office in early February.

Larrivee is inviting people to that new office, located in the lower level of Polson's Salish building (below the Fiesta en Jalisco Mexican restaurant).

"Come in, bring your questions and concerns," he said.

Or, call the office at 883-6080.

For more general information on the new OPD system, those with Internet can go to mt.gov and click on "office of the Public Defender."