- Associated Press - Saturday, May 17, 2014

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Criminal defense has always been a passion for Aylia McKee, even though she got her legal start with the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.

McKee said she always felt that being an advocate for someone should go beyond just legal representation, which was something she said she experienced as a deputy district attorney.

“There is a huge support system, as there should be, for victims of crime,” McKee said. “But I wanted to see that same (level of support) for those who are accused.”

McKee currently is working to build the county’s first Public Defenders Office, which will provide representation for Montgomery’s indigent criminal defendants.

Taking a holistic approach to representing indigent defendants is critical, McKee said, because most of those defendants will end up back in the community.

“It is going to be imperative from my direction and instruction to attorneys and staff that we look beyond the criminal case to get a comprehensive view of what our clients’ real needs are,” McKee said.

That will include addressing the mental health, social, environmental and economic issues that may have led to being involved in the criminal justice system to begin with, she said.

Getting started

The Public Defenders Office is still in its infancy, and in fact, McKee has just begun to interview people to start building a staff.

She said she expects to have key senior and support staff in place by the first of June, although there is no timetable yet on when the office will start taking cases.

The office will have a staff of 30, including 16 attorneys, which McKee compares to launching a medium-sized law firm.

Her first order of business was to acquire the Greil mansion on Lawrence Street, which will serve as the office’s headquarters, from Montgomery County.

The county is just providing the real estate, while other expenses for the office will be paid through the state Office of Indigent Defense Services.

The building itself has historic significance. It served as the governor’s mansion for John Gill Shorter during the Civil War. It later was acquired by Jacob Greil, a prominent Montgomery businessman.

The building’s majestic appearance and proximity to the Montgomery County courthouse both will be assets for the Public Defenders Office, McKee said.

“The building will be the first representation of what the office is giving and bringing to the community,” she said.

The building still needs some cleaning and minor repairs before staff is ready to move in.

McKee said she already has talked to some potential candidates for her senior staff and that will she will advertise for the positions starting next month.

McKee was born in Omaha, Nebraska and grew up in Whittier, California. He moved to Brewton when she was 14 and graduated from T.R. Miller High School.

She attended the University of Alabama for both undergraduate studies and law school, and her first job out of law school was as a deputy district attorney under Ellen Brooks.

She said she knew that she wanted to be a defense attorney, but she needed trial experience, and the district attorney’s office was the best place to find that.

From there, she became an assistant federal defender for the Public Defenders Office for the Middle District of Alabama.

While there, she supervised the military docket covering cases out of Maxwell Air Force Base and Fort Rucker.

McKee said being an advocate for people who have been accused of a crime is something she was always interested in, despite there being more lucrative paths for lawyers.

“You definitely don’t enter criminal law, I think, with the ideal of money or getting rich as a factor at all in the process,” McKee said.

Public defenders

McKee said the Public Defenders Office will bring a more economical and streamlined process than what is currently in place.

Under the current system, private attorneys who have contracts with the 15th Judicial Circuit are appointed to represent indigent defendants.

The Public Defenders Office will introduce a new system that will save the state money, she said.

“One attorney in our office can handle up to 150 felony cases at a reasonably set salary, versus having those same 150 (cases) sent out and paid on a case-by-case basis,” McKee said.

“No matter how many hours that it takes us to work a case or how much we have to be involved, we’re still paid the same.”

The Public Defenders Office will be phased in over time, and contract attorneys still will be needed for some cases, McKee said.

The office staff will include social workers to help with the holistic approach McKee said the office will have.

She said the office will reach out to the community, speaking to groups about the law and encouraging people to avoid actions that will lead them into the criminal justice system.

“I think education is the first place to start to try to curb some of the crime that we do have,” she said.

She said community outreach and gaining the support of other entities in the community will be vital to the office’s success.

“We will need that to establish a network in the community that can actually help, whether it is housing, mental health - actual factors that impact our clients’ lives and possibly their involvement in the criminal justice system,” McKee said.

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Information from: Montgomery Advertiser, https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com

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