by Samantha Hogan | July 9, 2020
Maine jails recorded at least 837 private phone calls between attorneys and inmates in the past 12 months, potentially violating state law in the process. Four county jails that detain defendants before trial inappropriately recorded confidential phone calls in a...
by Susan Cover | June 18, 2020
Maine’s public defense agency is still working to determine how many inmate phone calls with attorneys may have been improperly recorded and sent to prosecutors, with four known instances happening since 2015. The state is investigating the extent to which Maine...
by Samantha Hogan | May 7, 2020
The release of protected phone calls between a Maine attorney and his client housed at the Somerset County Jail have sparked concerns about inmates’ civil rights, and members of the state public defense commission say this could be the worst breach in attorney-client...
by Samantha Hogan | February 27, 2020
Advisors to Maine’s public defense system were expected to finalize a package of reforms on Tuesday to share with state lawmakers next month but instead learned that they had missed a deadline to submit rule changes by more than five weeks, delaying major changes...
by Samantha Hogan | January 9, 2020
The specter of fraud has shaded Maine’s public defense system for the past three years while lawmakers and a hired consultant investigated the state agency that oversees court-appointed lawyers for Maine’s poor. The largest probe yet is now underway into the financial...
