Public Defender

The chief public defender from Lancaster County has been hired as chief counsel for the state's new Judicial Conduct Board, which is responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct by judges. Vincent J. Quinn, 41, was chosen by the board at a meeting Monday in Harrisburg. He will be paid $77,000 a year and will start the job May 23. Quinn has headed Lancaster County's Office of the Public Defender, which provides free legal assistance to indigent criminal defendants, since 1989, administering a $990,000 annual budget and supervising 25 employees.

During his swan song yesterday in a Gloucester County courtroom, the Glassboro public defender pleaded guilty to official misconduct and drug charges, gave up his job, and then thanked the Prosecutor's Office and two of its investigators who handled the criminal charges against him. "I'm a young black man in a group that has often had unfavorable experiences with the law, and I want to commend the Prosecutor's Office in how they have handled this,"...

Stripped of his income, his office and his freedom, convicted Mayor Milton Milan returned to U.S. District Court yesterday to request that a federal public defender be assigned to his case. Dressed in a tan prison jumpsuit, Milan, 38, who has been in federal prison since his conviction last month on federal corruption charges, told Judge Joel A. Pisano that his financial situation prevented him from affording a lawyer. Milan said he had no income or liquid assets and added that he had accrued little equity through his real estate holdings.

A state Superior Court judge in Camden ordered a teenage shooting suspect held at the county detention center in Blackwood pending another hearing today. Judge Angelo DiCamillo scheduled the second hearing because Dymille Dredden, 15, did not have a public defender yesterday, a spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office said. The victim, Antwan Searles, 16, initially listed in critical condition, remained hospitalized in stable condition yesterday, the spokesman said.

Ronald Fox, a sex offender described by a judge as "one of the most obvious threats to women I have ever seen," was taken out of Chester County Prison yesterday and returned to Norristown State Hospital. Fox's public defender, Graham Andes, had asked that a contempt charge - and possibly jail time - be imposed on Norristown's superintendent for refusing to keep Fox after a judge ordered him there in May. Fox had made a feeble attempt to escape from Norristown in June, and the hospital sent him back to Chester County Prison.

A Philadelphia prosecutor found himself yesterday in the unenviable position of trying to discredit a sitting judge called by the defense to impeach the testimony of a jailhouse witness in a murder trial. The unusual scene unfolded in Room 902 of the Criminal Justice Center, where Wilfredo Santiago is being retried in the 1985 execution-style slaying of Police Officer Thomas Trench. Called as the second defense witness after the prosecution rested its case yesterday was Benjamin Lerner, a Common Pleas Court judge.

A Philadelphia public defender who refused to proceed in a death-penalty murder trial was jailed for contempt for about six hours yesterday until an appeals court judge sent her home. Superior Court Judge Richard B. Klein also ordered that either Assistant Defender Andrea Konow or her cocounsel Assistant Defender Fred Goodman be prepared to proceed today in the defense of Abdul Malik El-Shabazz, or take their appeal to the state Supreme Court. El-Shabazz, accused of the 2002 rape and suffocation slaying of 6-year-old Destiny Wright in Kensington, jumped up and punched Goodman in the face Monday after the prosecutor rested her case.

Profound experiences - serious illness, births, deaths, marriage and divorce - often trigger profound personal change. For veteran federal prosecutor Carlos A. Martir Jr., change came through an unexpected trip to Bosnia courtesy of the U.S. Army Reserve. Now home 10 weeks after nine months with international peacekeeping forces in the devastated Balkan country, Martir last week changed his professional direction 180 degrees: from government prosecutor to public defender. It's not unusual for a prosecutor to go into private practice and become a defense attorney.

Lesson Number One for Kelly Gerald, rookie public defender: Glamour definitely is not part of the job. There are times her clients tell her they want a real lawyer, not a public defender assigned to them because they can't afford anyone else. There are days when they urinate in front of her in their cells. And days when a large cockroach will skitter across the defense table in the shabby police courtroom in which she works. Lesson Number One for Cynthia Tompkins, rookie prosecutor: Glamour isn't part of this job, either.

In her eight years as the borough's court administrator, Mary Ann Burns said she has wanted Palmyra officials to hire a public defender for "seven years and two months. " "There's definitely been a need," she said. "A public defender will be better for everyone: the defendant, the courts and the borough. " Next month, Burns finally will get what she has wanted when the Borough Council appoints its first public defender, an attorney who will represent low-income defendants in the borough court free of charge.