Kerr v. Parsons
Annotate this CaseOn petition for a writ of superintending control, the issue this case presented for the New Mexico Supreme Court's review was an order issued by the Twelfth Judicial District Court in the criminal prosecutions against Santiago Carrillo. The district court’s order held that the flat-fee rates paid to indigent defense contract counsel by the Law Office of the Public Defender (LOPD) contravened the right to counsel and nullified the Legislature’s prohibition of the payment of hourly rates to contract counsel. The district court also issued a remedial order directing the LOPD to pay every contract attorney no less than $85 per hour and the State to provide the funding necessary for the LOPD to render such compensation. The Supreme Court held that the General Appropriations Act of 2015, Chapter 101, Section 4(C) of New Mexico Laws of 2015, did not violate the right to the effective assistance of counsel as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article II, Section 14 of the New Mexico Constitution. "We do not presume that the flat-fee rates paid to Carrillo’s contract attorney violate his right to counsel." Accordingly, the Court granted the writ of superintending control, vacated the district court’s orders, and remanded to the district court with instructions to proceed with the State’s prosecutions against Carrillo.
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