The Associated Press

FRANKFORT - Kentucky's top public defender plans to tell his lawyers to refuse to take new cases of poor people charged with crimes if the office's budget is cut again.

"I think innocent people will end up being convicted of crimes," said Ernie Lewis, head of the Public Advocacy Department.

Refusing new cases could force impoverished criminal defendants to go to trial and face potentially lengthy terms in prison with no attorney - or be released without their case being heard, Mr. Lewis said. Without a lawyer, some defendants may feel pressured to plead guilty, he said.

He said caseloads are so high among Kentucky's more than 300 public defenders that he has no choice despite the state constitution's requirement to provide criminal defense lawyers to all suspects who can't afford them.

Public Advocacy's budget, about $28 million a year, was cut nearly $500,000 in the 2001 fiscal year and $700,000 in 2002 even as its caseload grew by about 7 percent each year, Mr. Lewis said.

With the 5.2 percent budget cut proposed by Gov. Paul Patton's administration starting July 1, the agency would lose $1.3 million more. Mr. Lewis said that would force public defenders - who now represent 90 percent of all defendants charged with felonies in Kentucky - to stop taking new cases, and it might require staff layoffs.

The budget cuts and the growing caseloads have left public defenders handling an average of 448 cases each, Mr. Lewis said. In some regional offices, lawyers are handling well more than 500 cases each.

"I'm constantly putting out fires," said Melanie Lowe, who handles cases for the Elizabethtown regional public defender's office, the state's busiest. Lawyers there average 585 cases each. "You do the best you can, but sometimes it's not enough," she said.

University of Kentucky law professor Robert Lawson said lawmakers must provide more for chronically underfunded defenders.