‘Nobody paid attention to him’: Former SLO County Jail inmate sues public defender’s office
A man who spent about three months in solitary confinement at San Luis Obispo County Jail last year is suing the county public defender’s office after he says his appointed attorney didn’t investigate his case before urging he plead to a felony.
John Wyman — who ultimately pleaded down his case to a single misdemeanor charge of resisting a peace officer in May — filed the complaint Monday naming as defendants San Luis Obispo Defenders, a private law firm that contracts public defender services with the county, as well as Patricia Ashbaugh, head of the firm, and Ronald Crawford, who was Wyman’s court-appointed attorney.
The complaint accuses the firm of legal malpractice, saying it failed to competently represent Wyman, a 52-year-old honorably discharged U.S. Air Force veteran. His inadequate counsel cost him about 10 months total in custody, his attorney said by phone Tuesday.
Wyman’s current attorney, Paula Canny, is based out of the Bay Area and in recent years has filed litigation in San Luis Obispo County related to the treatment of the mentally ill in the County Jail as well as families of inmates who have died in the facility.
Canny said Tuesday that she brought the lawsuit so “indigent defendants will be more effectively represented.”
“He spent 10 months in custody for something that should have been done with right away,” she said.
Ashbaugh could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Three months in solitary confinement
Court records show Wyman was charged with the felonies the day after a July 5, 2018, incident in which he allegedly resisted three San Luis Obispo police officers with “force and violence.” He was charged with three felony counts, one for each officer, and faced up to three years in County Jail.
Crawford was appointed to represent Wyman at the latter’s arraignment July 9, and even though bail was set at $150,000, the lawyer motioned to continue the hearing without seeking a bail reduction, the complaint states.
At Wyman’s next hearing July 16, Crawford declared a doubt as to Wyman’s mental competence, and the criminal proceedings were suspended as doctors were appointed to evaluate Wyman.
The complaint states that at no time did Crawford or anyone from SLO Defenders request basic discovery from the prosecution, including officer body camera footage that Canny said contradicted the police reports in the case.
“No judge would have upheld a felony in the case,” Canny said. “But no one (from SLO Defenders) went to the DA with the video.”
The complaint additionally states that no public defender made an attempt to reduce Wyman’s bail or have him released on his own, and no defense attorney “meaningfully communicated” with him about his case.
“Nobody paid attention to him,” Canny said.
He spent his first three months in custody in solitary confinement, the attorney said, and Wyman contracted a bacterial infection in his leg that required treatment at a local hospital.
After his parents received no response from SLO Defenders, they ultimately contacted the family of Andrew Holland — a mentally ill Atascadero man who died in SLO Jail in January 2017 — who put them in touch with Canny, she said, and she took over his case.
Despite being ordered to Atascadero State Hospital for competency restoration in August 2018, Wyman wasn’t transferred to the facility until October before returning to SLO County Jail in March 2019, the complaint states. He then excused Crawford and retained Canny.
“Throughout the proceedings (Crawford) had advised (Wyman) to plead guilty to one felony,” the complaint reads. “Again, at no time did anyone from SLO Defenders investigate the case.”
Canny said Wyman faced a maximum of four years and four months if convicted of all three felonies; if he pleaded to one felony, he was looking at about 16 months in County Jail.
The prosecution in May agreed to dismiss two charges and reduce one to a misdemeanor in exchange for a no contest plea. He was subsequently released from County Jail with credit for time served.
‘Grossly underfunded’
The lawsuit states that SLO Defenders failed to exercise reasonable care in the performance of their professional duties to ensure that their legal services “met the standard of care observed by competent counsel.”
Wyman is seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory damages and recovery of attorney’s fees.
Despite the lawsuit, Canny said she has “great compassion for the people I’m suing” due to the public defender’s office being “grossly underfunded” compared to the District Attorney’s Office, which she said also benefits in court from the budgets of local law enforcement agencies.
In the 2018-19 Fiscal Year, the District Attorney’s Office had a budget of roughly $18.4 million, more than two-and-a-half times the county’s Public Defender budget of about $7 million.
“Nobody could perform under the financial constraints (the public defenders are) given, nor should they have to,” Canny said. “The county is responsible for that, for not funding an effective defense system.”