Cochise County public defender, legal advocate outline staffing, expert-fee and training needs ahead of budget cycle

Cochise County public defender Charles (Public Defender) and Andrew Marcy, director of the Legal Advocate, told the Board of Supervisors at a work session that staffing vacancies, rising expert‑witness and evidence‑review costs, and training needs will drive budget requests for the next fiscal year.

The presentations focused on three immediate budget pressures: judicial‑related professional fees for experts and accident reconstruction, a proposed $15,000 professional‑services fund to pre‑screen voluminous digital and medical records, and an increase to training funds to send newer attorneys to multi‑day trial and database trainings.

Charles said his office currently includes five criminal felony attorneys (two part time), a title‑36 mental‑health attorney, four dependency/misdemeanor/delinquency attorneys (three part time, one full time), one legal‑secretary supervisor, six legal secretaries and one defense investigator. He said his dependency attorney will retire in June and the office plans to move three part‑time legal defender positions under the public defender umbrella; the three part‑time roles now work roughly 21 hours…