With Del Norte County still lacking a chief public defender despite creating the position three years ago, District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey urged her colleagues to consider a different model.
Instead of the managed-assigned counsel model the Board of Supervisors approved in 2023, which consisted of a county public defender overseeing a department of contracted attorneys, Starkey hoped that establishing a traditional office would attract more applicants.
“We’ve leaned into a different model that hasn’t really been effective for us. We’ve recruited for it, but we haven’t been able to find someone,” she said Tuesday. “If we were to lean into a new traditional office — and that is the notice that’s going out, that’s what we’re marketing (for) — I feel we would get more of an applicant pool of people that have those career ambitions, to come in and create an office and establish permanency.”
Continue reading Unable to hire a chief public defender, Del Norte County Supes shift tactics, call for traditional indigent defense office
