Lavallee v. Justices in the Hampden Superior Court

The petitioners are indigent criminal defendants who have no attorneys to represent them due to a shortage of lawyers in the Hampden County bar advocates program.4 That shortage has been caused by the low rate of attorney compensation authorized by the annual budget appropriation. For fiscal year (FY) 2004 the authorized rates for private counsel were thirty dollars an hour for a District Court case, thirty-nine dollars an *230hour for a Superior Court case other than a homicide case, and fifty-four dollars an hour for a homicide case. See St. 2003, c. 26, § 2, line item 0321-1510.5 Since 1986…