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The San Benito County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a two-year contract with attorney Harry Damkar to provide the county’s interim indigent defense services at its March 12 meeting.
The move to replace the Fitzgerald, Alvarez & Ciummo law firm comes after a study raised concerns over a lack of services and called for the county to create its own public defender’s office and oversight committee. Damkar had been serving as the second-tier public defender.
There are three tiers within the county’s indigent defense services. The second and third tiers serve as a back-up in case of conflict of interest. Sean Cameron, the county’s assistant county counsel, told BenitoLink that the most common conflict of interest is when multiple people are charged for a crime within the same case.
On Feb. 27, the board received a report from Ashanti Mitchell, an attorney at the Indigent Defense Improvement Division with the Office of the State Public Defender highlighting major issues with the county’s indigent defense services, citing high caseloads, low litigation and frequent attorney turnover.
Damkar will take over as the county’s primary indigent defense–legal representation for persons who cannot afford a private attorney—after the Fitzgerald, Alvarez & Ciummo contract ends on April 30, the staff report said.
“My proposal is an interim solution to a current problem and will hopefully assist the county in making the transition from contract department to full-time entity,” Damkar said in his proposal.
The proposal included the public defender office’s estimated yearly budget of $1.5 million. The salaried staff included:
- $240,000 for a public defender who will be assigned felony, conservatorship and juvenile dependency cases
- $200,000 for a second public defender who will be assigned felony and other related cases
- $180,000 for a third public defender who will be assigned misdemeanor and minor felony cases
- $100,000 for an office manager
- $80,000 for a legal secretary
Contracted staff will include two investigators each paid $80,000, the proposal said. Payroll taxes are estimated at $96,000 and office operating expenses are estimated at $84,600, though some expenses are yet to be determined such as health insurance, 401k packages and other workplace insurance.
“I understand there are possible concerns about the cost of this,” Damkar said. “I tried to lay out some possible estimated costs. It’s not easy to get attorneys to come in on a last-minute basis to jump into a contract and to undertake what’s going to be contemplated with this office.”
Damkar started his career in the county as deputy district attorney in 1979.
In 2020, the county introduced a public survey to evaluate its public defenders. At the time, Damkar, Arthur Cantu and Gregory LaForge were the county’s contracted defenders.
Though the survey results are no longer available on the county’s website, BenitoLink obtained a copy of the results in April 2021.
The survey received 30 responses. It asked respondents if they felt their attorney fairly represented them: 60% of the respondents said the attorney did not represent them fairly. Twenty-one applicants said they had no contact with their attorney while incarcerated or after release.
There are 970 open files in the public defender’s office and about 4,000 cases filed each year by the District Attorney’s Office, Damkar said.
“We are in need of more resources for the public defender’s side of the equation in this county,” he said. “We have, right now, two full-time attorneys in the public defender’s office. In my opinion, that’s barely not even adequate.”
Damkar said the Fitzgerald, Alvarez & Ciummo attorneys are “tremendously overworked.”
After public comment, the supervisors expressed their support for change in public defense in the county.
Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki said: “It’s a temporary solution toward taking 10 much bigger steps forward and developing a permanent solution here in the near future.”
Supervisor Mindy Sotelo asked staff to present a one-year update of Damkar’s services and asked Ekam Brar, the county’s deputy counsel, to be the point person for public defense issues.
There were five public comments.
Israel Salazar, who spoke at the Feb. 29 county meeting, said he wanted to see a one-year contract and a transition plan to introduce a public defender’s office in the county, not only an interim contract.
He also expressed an interest in joining the county’s public defender oversight committee.
“I highly support an oversight committee,” Salazar said. “However, I feel it is lacking a few critical voices: the voice of a formerly incarcerated person or system-impacted person, a system-impacted young person and a family member or a parent of an impacted person.”
Sotelo agreed that the oversight committee should include a person who was previously incarcerated or youth and family that have been impacted by the public defense system.
Elia Salinas mentioned the lack of litigation and motions by the current public defense and asked if Damkar’s services will differ.
“What is Mr. Damkar going to do?” she asked. “Is he going to come up here and promise that he’s going to be doing 100%? When we already know it’s not being 100%.”
During public comment, Mitchell encouraged the supervisors to establish a public defender’s office in the county.
“As referenced in the report, research has shown that institutional public defender systems provide a county with multiple advantages,” he said. “Most importantly, an institutional public defender office allows the county to ensure that attorneys are trained and supervised, that caseloads are controlled and that its attorneys are devoting the time to public defender cases.”
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