Indiana: Standards Tied to State Funding in Non-Capital and Capital Cases

Though each individual county would fund and manage its own public defender system, a state public defender commission was created in 1989 to set uniform standards for public defender services. It relied upon ABA and NLADA standards on caseloads, compensation and support services. The initial objective was for the state commission to link compliance with the standards to reimbursements to the counties, beginning with death penalty cases. Counties which complied with the state standards for death penalty cases were reimbursed for 50 percent of defense costs for those cases.

The commission then persuaded the Indiana Supreme Court to make the standards for death penalty cases mandatory, rather than voluntary; the court codified this standard in Criminal Rule 24 in 1992. In 1993, the legislature approved 25 percent reimbursement for defense costs in non-capital cases, without making compliance with the standards mandatory. In 1997, the reimbursement percentage was raised to 40 percent, and even though compliance is still voluntary, it has made a large difference in terms of the number of counties in compliance 37 out of 92.

From Redefining Leadership for Equal Justice: Final Report of the National Symposium on Indigent Defense 2000 (Office of Justice Programs/Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice, 2001), at 16. (pdf document)

"[W]e should explore ways to create incentives for counties and agencies to meet standards for competent indigent defense. Indiana, for example, now reimburses counties for a fixed portion of their indigent defense costs when those counties comply with certain minimum standards designed to improve the quality of indigent defense. We should follow that example."
- U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, June 29, 2000, id. at viii.

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