Save the Date: Newly constituted Public Defender Services Commission postpones first meeting from April 4th to April 25th.

New members of the Public Defender Services Commission will have three weeks to learn details of the fear and loathing that has recently marked the state agency they oversee. The Commission has moved its first meeting with five new members–and one still to be appointed–three weeks from Tuesday to April 24th.

The delay will provide new members with time to review the issues that caused a mass resignation of members two weeks ago. Members may want to conduct a candid canvas of the resigners and send a small delegation to meet with Attorney General William Tong to compare versions of events. The next three weeks will also provide Shipman & Goodwin sufficient time to conduct its investigation of a detailed complaint from an employee to the Commission about her treatment by Chief TaShun Bowden-Lewis. The Commission will also want to consider a request to Tong for a broader investigation. Many employees of the division would like to share their experiences and observations.

The Commission, now with three members, may want to review the state’s Freedom of Information Act. It is an arc that bends toward opening meetings, not closing them for the most tangential connections to exemptions.

Published April 3, 2023.