House Judiciary Committee reports bill to set juvenile indigent-defense standards

Chair Lightner, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced House Bill 4,070 at the committee meeting and moved the committee to report the bill with recommendation. The bill, a reintroduction from the prior term, would extend the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission’s standards and training requirements for adult criminal trial defense to juvenile delinquency proceedings and add a juvenile-expert commissioner to MIDC.

Proponents told the committee that the bill seeks parity between juvenile and adult indigent defense by formalizing training requirements, minimum performance standards, and guaranteed access to experts and investigators for youth. Kristin Staley, executive director of the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission, described MIDC’s role in creating and enforcing minimum standards, administering grants to local systems, and providing technical assistance. “We are required as a commission ... to develop and oversee the implementation of minimum standards on delivering public defense,” Staley said, summarizing the agency’s statutory mandate and the reforms MIDC has rolled out in adult trial courts.

The Michigan State Appellate Defender Office (SADO) also spoke in support. Madelena David, acting director of SADO, outlined the appellate office’s youth-related work and its juvenile-lifer and reentry units. “Public defenders are the only constitutionally mandated attorneys in our country,” David said,…