22-4501. Panel of attorneys for indigents’ defense services; eligibility; amendment, review and approval; appointments to aid defendants, method.
(a) The judge or judges of the district court of each county shall prepare, and file in the office of the clerk of the district court, a list of attorneys who are eligible for assignment to represent indigent persons accused of crimes, such list to be known as the panel for indigents’ defense services.
(b) Each member of the panel for indigents’ defense services shall be available to represent indigent defendants upon the appointment of any judge of the district court of the judicial district in which such member maintains an office for the practice of law, or any adjacent judicial district. All such appointments shall be in accordance with the applicable system for providing legal defense services for indigent persons prescribed by the state board of indigents’ defense services for the county or judicial district. A judge of the district court may appoint an attorney who is a member of the panel for indigents’ defense services of a county other than the county where the case is pending only after such judge of the district court has found that no member of the panel for indigents’ defense services of the county where the case is pending is eligible or qualified to represent the defendant.
(c) The panel for indigents’ defense services may be amended by the addition of names thereto or the deletion of names therefrom whenever the removal of attorneys to or from the district or any other cause makes such action appropriate, and at least once annually it shall be reviewed and approved by the judge or judges of the district court of the county.
(d) The state board of indigents’ defense services shall provide by rule and regulation for the assignment of attorneys to the panel for indigents’ defense services, for the distribution of the list of panel members to the judges of the district court and law enforcement officials of the judicial district, and for the appointment, by rotation or otherwise, of counsel from the panel for indigents’ defense services to represent indigent persons charged with crimes in such cases and under such circumstances as may be required by law.
History: L. 1969, ch. 291, § 1; L. 1976, ch. 145, § 110; L. 1982, ch. 142, § 11; July 1.