E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Send E-mail
Reprint story
Friday, January 02, 2009
City Will Rely on Contract Lawyers
By Scott Sandlin
Journal Staff Writer
The City Attorney's Office, short-staffed on attorneys to defend police civil rights suits and hamstrung by budget problems that prevent filling vacancies, will rely more on outside contract lawyers, the top lawyer told a federal judge.
City Attorney Bob White and Deputy City Attorney Kathryn Levy were summoned to a hearing earlier this week before Senior U.S. District Judge James A. Parker, who wanted to know why the office was so perennially understaffed that deadlines are missed and extensions repeatedly requested in police cases.
He pressed Levy and White on the case at hand — a civil rights case involving the wrongful arrest of a couple by police in 2005 — about why the judgment hadn't been paid two months after trial when there is no appeal.
"My perception is that Ms. Levy is terribly overworked," Parker said.
Parker praised courtroom work by Levy, who tried 12 cases in the last year under the mayor's policy of not settling civil rights lawsuits. But he said the plaintiffs "are entitled to get their relatively modest judgments."
White said city budget problems had meant unfilled vacancies, so a few months ago he began sending new cases to outside contract attorneys, whose fees are paid from a risk management fund rather than the general fund.
In the case at issue, Homero Alonso Mata and Christine Molina had gone to a Circuit City store with their son to buy a stereo.
But their October 2005 buying trip with cash in hand for a surround sound system took a sour turn when a manager decided — incorrectly — that the money was counterfeit. The couple was arrested as they left the store by Albuquerque Police officers summoned by the manager. There was no independent investigation of the allegations, and the couple's minor son was taken to a police command center.
The case was tried in November. But Parker had previously ruled that the city was liable for the actions of Officers Stephen Devoti, Mariah Wood and Steve Lopez, and the trial was devoted primarily to what happened in the store.
The jury found $15,000 in damages caused by officers and a total of $17,000 in compensatory damages and $175,000 in punitive damages by Circuit City. The electronics chain has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection while it reorganizes.
Mata and Molina's attorneys Keith Franchini and Edward Glass submitted a bill to the city for $80,000, and after the hearing agreed to take $65,000 to resolve the fee issue.
Franchini said the store manager had accused Mata and Molina of passing counterfeit $100 bills even though another store employee who testified at trial used a "counterfeit pen" and determined the currency was legitimate. The manager who called police described the couple as "Mexicans," he said. Mata is a legal 25-year U.S. resident and Molina is an Albuquerque native and lifelong resident, he said.
Franchini said he argued to the jury that the treatment would have been different "if this was Keith Franchini in a three-piece suit."
You also can send comments via our comment form
|
|
