OKPOLICY.ORG
Legislators’ favorable view of the state’s district attorneys is evident in the passage of a couple of measures requested by the District Attorney’s Council (DAC) to attempt to address the shortage of attorneys willing to serve as assistant district attorneys (ADAs) in sparsely populated rural areas of the state.
With the migration of young professionals to metro areas, the DAC made the case for spending an annual $7 million in incentives to attract and retain ADAs in rural areas during a tight budget year.
House Bill 3980 by Rep. Trey Caldwell, R-Faxon, Chair of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee, and Sen. Todd Gollihare, R-Sapulpa, Chair of the Senate Public Safety and Judiciary Appropriations Subcommittee, creates a student loan repayment program within DAC. The state has agreed to pay $5,000 per year in loan repayments to any attorney who commits to working in selected District Attorney Offices in qualified rural areas, and will make up to $50,000 in cumulative payments over a 10-year period. The Legislature appropriated $2.5 million for the program.
HB 3981 by Caldwell and Gollihare creates an incentive program that pays ADAs up to $50,000 — $10,000 annually — for an initial 5-year period, in addition to their regular pay, to locate or stay in designated rural areas. Following the completion of the initial five-year period, the state may provide an ongoing incentive of up to $10,000 per year, granted in two-year increments. A total of $4.5 million was allocated to the incentive pay program.
In total, an ADA with student debt can receive up to $15,000 per year by moving to or remaining in designated rural areas. The areas are typically eligible due to their remote or rural status and high ADA vacancy or turnover rates. It will be interesting to see if the program is effective in attracting ADAs. Certainly, everyone wants competent prosecutors throughout the state.
However, the new DAC incentive programs raise an issue of parity for defense attorneys working for the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System (OIDS). Presumably, it is no less difficult to locate competent defense lawyers in these same rural areas.
OIDS requested, among other things, $1 million to hire additional attorneys and $2.5 million to supplement contract attorneys in the areas not covered by full-time OIDS lawyers, but their requests were not funded by the legislature.
Criminal defense lawyers are not as popular as DAs who wear the “law and order” mantle, but the Constitution and basic principles of fairness require the availability of competent defense counsel as well as prosecutors to ensure justice.
