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People v. Cardenas11/18/2002
tion to use their positions to provide access to our justice system, and, in that vein, they have an obligation to use the court's administrative tools to develop a court culture that is supportive of pro bono service. Id.
Allowing the state to pay costs, in conjunction with pro bono attorney time, as a matter of economic reality would encourage attorney participation in pro bono service. Pro bono representation envisions providing legal services without compensation, but not necessarily at high individual expense to the attorney. When an attorney provides pro bono service, she demonstrates a commitment to the public interest. When private counsel agrees to represent an indigent defendant, the burden and financial cost is taken off the state public defender's office. Allowing indigent defendants to receive support services, at the state's expense, even when they are represented by private counsel, encourages counsel to provide the service and saves the state the cost of attorney's fees.
Nothing in our statutory law prohibits state funded translation services to support indigent defendants who proceed with private pro bono counsel. Further, allowing an indigent defendant to have interpreter services, paid for by the state, would not give the defendant the right to choose any counsel and then charge the state for the representation. The state would not be responsible for the attorney's fees. An indigent defendant would still be required to obtain state paid attorney representation through the public defender's office. The decision that the state will not pay attorney's fees for an indigent's counsel of choice does not require that support services be governed by the same rationale as attorney services paid for by the state. Furthermore, state funded support services for indigent defendants would be controlled by the standard of necessity for an adequate defense.
C. Remand Would Allow County Court to Exercise Its Discretion
Consistent with the attorney's oath of office and pro bono aspirational rule, I conclude that we should remand this case to the county court, so that it may determine whether out-of-courtroom certified interpreter services will aid the just resolution of the case before the court. The court could first proceed with the in-courtroom interpreter to determine whether Cardenas would benefit from attorney Zimmerman's representation and the services of an additional interpreter. If so, it could make the appointment of the additional interpreter. If not, it could decline to do so.
The underlying issue in this case appears to be whether Cardenas has a basis for withdrawing his guilty plea. Cardenas was initially charged with driving under the influence , driving under the influence per se, and two other traffic charges in an incident on February 25, 2002. Because Cardenas' blood test failed to show a positive result for the illegal substances tested, the district attorney's office filed a motion to dismiss, and the Court subsequently dismissed the DUI and DUI per se charges. However, during the first appearance on the traffic offenses on May 22, 2002, the court granted the district attorney's motion to amend the charges against defendant to include a driving under the influence of drugs (DUID) charge. The defendant was persuaded to plead guilty to that DUID charge in return for a dismissal of all remaining charges and a suspension of jail as a condition of probation. Probation was to last a period of two years.
Defendant was without representation during his plea, and it is unclear whether the public defender would have assisted Cardenas in his guilty plea because his jail sentence was suspended. Sally Torres, who provided interpreta
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