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Home > Blogs > Dayton Courts: Legal and crime news > Archives > 2010 > June > 09 > Entry
Public defender’s contract will not be renewed
DAYTON — Montgomery County Public Defender’s Commission voted Wednesday, June 9, not to renew the contract of Glen Dewar, who has been on paid suspension since March 19.
Dewar has been the county’s public defender since 2000. The five-member commission voted unanimously after spending more than an hour in executive session, then immediately voted to adjourn.
Dewar’s contract expires at the end of July. The commission took no other action concerning Dewar, who will remain on paid suspension. Deputy director Rudy Wehner will continue as acting director. The board’s next meeting will be July 7.
Dewar has been at the center of several controversies this year, including a number of computer purchases that were the subject of an audit. The county auditor found that the office deliberately evaded county procedures for those purchases and entered an invalid contract for internet service.
The public defender’s commission turned that audit over to the county prosecutor’s office for review last month. The commission did not discuss the audit at the meeting.
Dewar said May 3, that all of the purchases were done for legitimate and ethical reasons. He also said that his office did not have to go through the county’s automatic data processing board because his office was excluded from the state’s data processing statute, just as the common pleas court and court of appeals are. He also said that he gave the office’s IT director Ryan Sevey the authority to sign the contract.
Sevey’s position was eliminated May 7. During the commission meeting, Wehner said that the money for Sevey’s position was used to hire an attorney. He also said that the county’s IT people arrived May 7 to move the office back to the county’s system, a transition he said was “almost seamless.”
Another controversy centered on the public defender’s office’s relationship with Dayton Municipal Court, where judges have discussed not renewing the city’s contract with the office.
In December, Administrative Judge Carl S. Henderson signed an order that said the docket of newly appointed Judge Deirdre E. Logan was too congested. That order suspended the appointment of assistant public defenders to cases on Logan’s docket.
Henderson wrote then: “Due to the number of cases assigned to the Public Defender’s office, it is unlikely that the public defenders can adequately and efficiently prepare a proper defense, which may result in prejudice to the defendants.”
Wehner told the commissioners that the public defender’s office returned to Logan’s docket on May 17.
Steve Dankof, one of the commissioners, thanked Wehner in open session for bringing the office back to Logan’s docket and clearing up problems at the municipal court, calling it “a big deal.”
The Public Defender’s Office, which provides legal services to indigent criminal defendants, employed 75 people in 2007, according to payroll records.
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