New Bedford District Court Probation Department's Indigency Determination Process for State-Sponsored Legal Services

This is a 2011 Massachusetts State Auditor report about how New Bedford District Court checked whether defendants qualified as indigent for state-paid legal counsel.

“The New Bedford District Court (NDC) was one of the 27 courts selected for our review.”

The auditor reviewed New Bedford as part of a broader audit of public counsel services and how courts decide who qualifies for them.

“As part of our audit of the CPCS, we selected a representative sample of 27 of the Commonwealth’s 70 district courts to review.”

If eligibility is not checked properly, public money may pay for lawyers for people who do not qualify, while the system lacks proof that decisions were correct.

“Accordingly, there was inadequate assurance that the NDC Probation Department performed the required verification of the information provided by clients who applied for and received state-sponsored legal services.”

For taxpayers, this matters because the report questions whether money spent on public defense at this court was properly controlled.

“As a result of these conditions, there is inadequate assurance that the funding provided to the CPCS to retain public counsel for the 5,641 individuals deemed indigent by the NDC in fiscal year 2010 was appropriately spent.”

The court needed written rules, better verification, and better recordkeeping to show that only eligible defendants received state-paid lawyers.

“In order to address our concerns relative to this matter, we recommend that the NDC Probation Department take measures to immediately comply with all the requirements of Chapter 211D of the General Laws.”

The report recommends immediate compliance with state law and formal written procedures, including rules for keeping records.

“Further, the NDC Probation Department, in conjunction with the Office of the Commissioner of Probation, should develop and implement a formal, written set of policies and procedures to communicate these requirements to Probation Department employees, as well as a formalized system of internal controls designed to ensure compliance with Chapter 211D.”

The finding is significant because the problems were not just paperwork issues: the auditors found no routine verification and missing documents in the files they reviewed.

“Based on our review of these case files and our discussions with Probation Department staff, we determined that the NDC Probation Department does not routinely conduct any verification of the information provided to it by defendants in order to ensure that these individuals are indigent and entitled to state-sponsored legal counsel.”

“Indigent” means someone poor enough, under court rules, to qualify for a publicly funded lawyer.

“Rule 3:10, Section 1, of the Supreme Judicial Court defines an indigent person as an individual who is:”