Montgomery County commissioner questions waived legal fees at meeting

Written by
Luke Thompson
The Leaf-Chronicle
2:34 AM, Sep. 22, 2011

Members of the county's budget committee questioned the waiving of more than $550,000 in legal fees in a month during a meeting Wednesday afternoon.

County Commissioner Tommy Vallejos expressed the most concern with a recent report showing that various legal fees totaling $556,033 were waived in July, primarily from circuit courts.

Judge Ken Goble said in most cases defendants are simply unable to pay, either because they have no money or at least no legal source of income.

"The bottom line is when we waive fees, we don't have any choice," Goble told Vallejos. "Trust me, we don't do it without heavy consideration."

However, the commissioner said he believes that many defendants do have the money to cover the costs, and urged that the matter be diligently assessed on a case-by-case basis. Even if defendants can't pay right away, he asked the judge to try to collect the fees sometime down the road instead of just eliminating them.

"With the cost of everything going up and budget restraints, I think it's critical that we hold (defendants) accountable," Vallejos said.

He added that the courts lose a lot of money for holding illegal immigrants whose fees are never paid by the federal government after they are deported.

Goble said he understood the concern, but he couldn't compromise his integrity as a judge by taking the county's budget into consideration.

http://www.theleafchronicle.com/article ... es-meeting