MAYVILLE – The Chautauqua County Legislature had its first regular voting session of 2014 on Wednesday night with a fairly light agenda. Lawmakers were able to complete the meeting in half-an-hour with most of the resolutions being acted on with little discussion.
Among the items to be approved was a resolution re-appointing Jamestown Attorney Ned Barone as public defender at a salary of $75,000 per year through 2015. Barone told WRFA following the meeting that he was pleased to see unanimous support from lawmakers.
“The legislature has been extremely supportive the past couple of years and I can see after talking with some of the new legislators that have come into the body this year, I think that they are going to be even more supportive,” Barone said. “It’s a difficult job and it’s a difficult office. Our caseload increases every year because of the financial situations we find ourselves in. But in order to really work effectively, we’re all in this together – the legislature, myself, our office staff and our clients – and we really need to work together in order to solve as many of these problems as we can.”
Barone also talked a little about some of the challenges the public defenders office faces. He says that obviously a limited budget from the county is the biggest challenge, but his office has been able to find other revenue from New York State.
“One of the things I’ve been able to do in order to stay within that budget is to get more grants from New York State Indigent Legal Services. So what I’ve been able to do is write more grants, make more applications and try to get more money from both the federal government and the state. So in order to subsidize our increased caseload, that’s where I’ve been going, at no extra cost to the county, which of course is the most important aspect of [the grant process].”
Barone said that he anticipates he will remain busy for the next several months. In February, he will be working on a retrial for the Barak Cornell arson case, which first went before the county court a couple of years ago. However, the guilty verdict was overturned on an appeal in October 2013 and a new trial will now have to take place. Cornell was convicted in April 2011 for intentionally starting a fire at the home of his neighbor in early 2008.
Then in early March, Barone will begin his defense of 34 year old Davide Coggins, one of the four suspects involved in the April 2013 Carroll home invasion and double homicide, which led to the death of Frewsburg couple Gordon and Joyce Skinner.
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