Oral History Interview with Allison Connelly



CARA LANE CAPE: My name is Cara Lane Cape and today I will be interviewing

Allison Connelly, here at her office in Lexington, Kentucky. It is October 26,

2012, and this interview with Ms. Connelly is in regards to the history of the

Department of Public Advocacy, as well as, her involvement and experiences

withthe agency as a Public Advocate. When did you become the first public

defender and why did you choose the profession?

ALLISON CONNELLY: I had a job with a large firm coming out of law school, but

in my third year of law school I heard a panel of public defenders speak at the

law school. The legislature had created some new offices and there were public

defender jobs. After I heardthe panelists, Ed Monahan, Ernie Lewis, and Paul

Isaacs,talk about their work, I decided that was the job for me. So, I applied

for a position and got a position. Then the funding dried up; this was 1983, but

I was persistent. I finally just drove to Frankfort. DPA had no recruiting

person so I just drove to Frankfort and met with Randy Wheeler who was the head

of Post-Conviction at the time. They had a position for an office that was

coming open in Northpoint Training Center, and I said I'll take it. And that's

how I got hired by the Department.

CAPE: So, you led the DPA Post-Conviction Program, tell us the significance of

post-conviction services?

CONNELLY: Well, I think it's changed substantially over the years. When I first

started, I started in Post-Conviction as a young lawyer at Northpoint prison and

our job was really to provide access to the courts under a federal consist

decree that had been entered. Kentucky's prisons were found by a federal court

to be unconstitutional because of conditions of confinement and because of lack

of access, court access. So, DPA had an office at Northpoint to provide that

access and to help the inmates get access to the courts. What we began to see

pretty quickly were a lot of issues that had they been raised on appeal, would

have been just terrific appellate issues. We started filling RCr11.42 petitions

on behalf of inmates that we felt had meritorious cases.I think the most

important lesson I learned from my post-conviction work was: one, how to be a

good trial lawyer, and to be a good trial lawyer you've got to know how to

preserve error; two, the Department gave me the opportunity to be a trial,

appellate, and post-conviction lawyer. So, I got a taste of all three aspects of

the criminal justice system; and three, the difference between good lawyers and

bad lawyers; the difference between well trained lawyers and poorly trained

lawyers through reviewing inmate cases.

CAPE: When did you serve as Public Advocate?

CONNELLY: From 1992 till 1996.

CAPE: How did you become the Public Advocate during that time?

CONNELLY: I was the head of Post-Conviction and I was teaching here at the law

school as an adjunct professor. I've done so since 1986. I figured that I had a

pretty good resume. I loved the Department. I thought there were a lot of things

that needed to be rectified in the Department. So, I applied, had a pretty good

interview and kind of,got lucky. I think I was the least known of the three

candidates that were nominated by the Commission. I think Governor Jones

probably picked the least known individual.

CAPE: What made you want to take on the responsibility?

CONNELLY: Everybody loves a challenge. If you're in work that you love and you

think you can make a difference in the work that you love,then you want to

improve what you love.So, that's why I did it.

CAPE: So, you were the first Kentucky woman Public Advocate, tell us the

significance of that.

CONNELLY: When I started practicing law in 1984, there were no women lawyers in

the rural counties where I practiced, except Representative, now Senator Kathy

Stein. We would always laughthat we were the only women anywhere around. There

was some subliminal discrimination;but I would say that the male judges didn't

take us as seriously as the men until we appealed them and successfully got our

cases reversed. After a few reversals, the judges took us much more

seriously.So, I don't know if being the first woman Public Advocate was as

important as breaking barriers in trial courts all over the state. My

appointment as Public Advocate made clear that law is a profession that is open

to men and women equally, and it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman you

can be a great trial lawyer and public defender.

CAPE: So, what was your vision for the statewide public defender program?

CONNELLY: That's a tough question, because when I was appointed as Public

Advocate the General Assembly had cut $545,000 from the budget. When I got the

appointment that cut had already taken effect and we were running about a

$240,000 deficit at the time. So, the pressures on the system were huge. The

legislature just met every two years at that point and we were struggling to

figure out how we are going to make it through the next couple years without

cutting services. We made it and we didn't cut services. I think we lapsed

something like 19 cents back to the State, We didn't cut services and

immediately I was focused on how are we going to raise enough revenue to improve

the system. Ed Monahan was instrumental in getting a Task Force on Public

Defender funding after that first year in office. We had a terrific Task Force.

I think my focus really at that time was getting us on an economic footing. My

focus was getting or educating Legislators and the Governor on the importance of

the criminal justice system, because I think it had been neglected. I can

remember Governor Jones, in his first State of the Commonwealth Address, talked

about the need for public defenders; the need for more funding. At that point,

I thought we've made an impact. So, that year we were able to pass legislation,

House Bill 388, that, I think was one of the most significant things I was able

to do. It increased funding and the Governor's budget also increased our funding.

I focused on the urban areas, Louisville, Lexington, Covington, which were

really the biggest sore spots in the state at the time. I believe in a full-time

defender system. I didn't think the time was right at that point because of the

money issue, but I felt we could make some changes toward providing full-time

lawyers in these urban areas. We added ten lawyers to the Jefferson County

Public Defender's System that had been terrifically underfunded for years. We

added two lawyers to the Fayette County Public Defender System, and got them a

retirement system. When I came into office Fayette County didn't even have a

retirement system. So, I worked with Fayette County'sCommission to get a

retirement system implemented. We opened an office in Covington because

Covington hada rotating of-counsel system, headed by Bob Carran, who was a

terrific lawyer. But these lawyers were donating services for pennies on the

dollar and they just couldn't, the system just couldn't continue to do that.

When I left the public defender system, we had about a million dollars in

surplus and that made it, I think, much better for the next Public Advocate. At

least somebody coming in didn't have to look at this very bleak economic picture

that we had back in the early 90s.

CAPE: Would that have been the Task Force on the Delivery of Funding and

Quality Public Defender Services?

CONNELLY: It was; and one thing that came out of that Task Force, which is one

of the things I'm most proud of is we amended the Public Defender statute,

Chapter 31, and created this expert witness fund. Before the expert witness fund

was created, we had to litigate court orders that refused to provide funds for

expert and other services. The office would have a capital case and the

defenders would make motions for funds for experts, as was constitutionally

mandated, and they'd get denied, because providing necessary funds could

bankrupt a county. By creating this expert witness fund, those kinds of issues

were greatly ameliorated. There was still litigation of coursein the fine points

of the law, but the real coup was what would happen should the fund ever run

dry, since every county had to contribute 12.5 cents into the pool. The

language I drafted said, should the fund ever run dry then the General Treasury

would be responsible for any shortfall. That was the real fight. Amazingly,

DPA's supporters in that legislationwere the county judge executives because

they recognized they had to provide these services and yet they didn't want to

bankrupt their county. So, it was in the county judges' interest to permit this

fund to go forward. I think it helped a lot of people with very serious crimes.

It put our focusin the right place, not this litigating over funds that people

are constitutionally entitled to receive, but in getting the type of defense

experts they were entitled to receive. I was pretty proud of that piece of legislation.

ED MONAHAN: That is as you say an extraordinary advancement because it, in a

fact, it was creating a necessary governmental expense provision. Why would the

state agree to that? How did you prevail on achieving something so few could

achieve in terms of getting, in effect,explicit authorization for a necessary

governmental expense?

CONNELLY: I worked very closely with the Governor's General Counsel Mark

Guilfoyle. Part of House Bill 388 had pending legislation that gave DPA some of

the DUI fee. At the time, the bad economic time that I served, I had proposed a

tax on guns that got headlines, but didn't go anywhere else of course. Then the

governor's office was calling, don't, don't talk about guns (chuckles), don't do

that, which I thought was perfectly logical. But the state had a $50 DUI fee;DPA

wanted a share of that fee since we represented so many people that are charged

and/or convicted of DUI. And HB 388 also had an Administrative Services Fee, I

think of $40, to be paid by those needy individuals that could pay it up front,

but the language in the statue said something like the provision of services

shall not be affected by the failure to pay this fee. So, DPA had this pending

legislation already but the expert witness fund was thorny. When I went to

Guilfoyle I said, we've got this problem, and all we are doing is litigating,

litigating, litigatingthese court orders against the counties.Mark said,"well

come meet with some county judge executives." I met with some judge executives

and we hammered out a solution.

MONAHAN: Do you recall who the county judge executives were?

CONNELLY: No, I don't.

MONAHAN: Was one of them Tommy Turner, from Larue County?

CONNELLY: Tommy Turner was not a part of that meeting. I don't think I met

Tommy Turner until later, after that legislation passed, but I could have met

him earlier.HB 388 passed in March, so, it would have been in January of '94

when we started laying the ground work. In advocating for the legislation, I

treated the Bill as if it were a trial level case. I tried to use that type of

advocacy that I had been sowell trained on, by Ed. Ed Monahanwas the head of the

training department during my tenure. That's how I presented the Department's

issues. I didn't have a difficult time even with people like David Williams. It

went through pretty quickly, pretty easily.

CAPE: So, other than funding, what was some of your biggest challenges?

CONNELLY: Well the funding was the biggest challenge. It has to be because if

there's no money, you've got a breakdown of the system. So, I was pretty focused

especially with that deficit, on trying to figure out how we could improve

services, despite this deficit; how we could better the Department for the

future. Of course your contract lawyers at the time were a big problem and we've

gotten so much more of an improved system now. At the time I came in we had a

bunch of contract lawyers, I think in 80 counties, but there was no

administrative oversight. So, that was a huge challenge, how do we ensure that

the people that are providing public defender services pursuant to a contract,

whether it's trial level work or appellate level work, and there were problems

in both areas, how do we improve that. So, I put in, I changed the

organizational structure which was very lean. There was no General Counsel;

there was no Deputy Public Advocate. There was me and a trial services head, a

contract services head, and an appellate services head. We also had the Death

Penalty Resource Center that we then lost later on when those federal funds ran

out. So, I created a capital trial unit that was very small, at the time. So, I

tried to focus on the most major problems because there just wasn't enough money

to do so otherwise, and I think we increased the budget like three million

dollars, but that does not go far.

CAPE: Who were your political supports or enemies?

CONNELLY: I tried not to make enemies but obviously Governor Patton and I did

not see eye to eye on some things. I think across the board I had pretty good

support from everyone. I think we educated the judges fairly well on the need

for defenders. I think the prosecutors understood, most of them, the importance

of public defenders and what would happen to the court system if we didn't

provide public defenders. So, I really had support, I made very few enemies. As

I said, I litigated the Department's case, litigated like it was a trial. Where

I'm from in Eastern Kentucky "you always catch more flies with sugar," and I

always tried to catch flies with sugar. Now when it came down to it, of course I

wasn't reappointed. A lot of it, I think, turned out to be the right thing. I'm

very happy where I ended up. I mean I was disappointed when I wasn't

reappointed, but then things happen for a reason. I can't imagine really being

anywhere else than a law school because you can affect many future public

defenders and prosecutors, and you can give the prosecutors a sense of what's fair.

During my tenure, Governor Patton defunded the entire capital trial unit.

First,he tried to defund our new juvenile program. We got about $340,000 to

represent juveniles in prisons, and he tried to convert those funds into paying

private lawyers. There was kind of a battle of wills on that issue, which he

recanted on. So, we got to keep that money, but then his budget came out and he

had defunded the whole capital trial unit and we just couldn't take that kind of

hit. I don't know if it was $500,000, because we had federal resource center

money too, which was $500,000, and then he defunded the entire capital trial

branch. I had to go to the legislature and talk against his budget; we just

couldn't take the hit. It is not a thing I would change my mind about but you

know when you have that kind of public battle with a sitting Governor, your days

are numbered, so, you might as well make the best you can of those days.

CAPE: What did you do in terms of keeping accurate case records?

CONNELLY: Well we had a caseload counting system. To say that it was accurate,

that would be a hard statement because really we just continued on with what we

had been using. I think we had a study and we tried improve our caseload

counting system. We taught the directing attorneys, this is how you count cases.

But it was never, I don't think a true reflection of how many cases we were

handling. So, I would say, we counted cases, whether we did so accurately,

that's a good question.

CAPE: What were the workload realities during your tenure?

CONNELLY: You would have to pull an old Advocate. Ed Monahan always had great

statistics on caseload levels and cost.So pull an old Advocate and look at that

because I'm afraid I'd misstate it. There were too many cases per lawyer,

especially in the urban areas. This is not to say that the rural areas didn't

have different issues, but Fayette and Jefferson County, and Covington were just

500 cases a lawyer or something, it was just mind-boggling to me and still is.

You're still always fighting those high caseload levels, even if there's an

economy to-scale argument, it's still worrisome.

CAPE: Tell us about the challenges of the capital litigation during you term.

CONNELLY: I was really lucky. I never really got sued for failure to provide

representation. We raised the cap from $2,500 to $5,000, which was a huge raise

in the 90s. I never got sued. We didn't have any executions. I was very lucky.

We tried to improve the capital branch by having a capital unit. I think cases

probably generated out of that. I think the biggest case we had was the Gregory

Wilson case and I immediately, because of that appellate opinion, got it out of

the office.Dan Goyette took the case because it was such a high profile, bad

case. I wanted clean hands to look at the case and he did. So, I'd say that was

the greatest challenge, that particular case. We made some small strides in

capital litigation with the capital trial unit that was kind of situated in

Frankfort, but not enough, not enough.

CAPE: Any other memorable cases during your tenure?

CONNELLY: Memorable cases. Not really that I can recall but I continued to

handle an appeal or two myself. I felt like, and I think other Public Advocates

disagree, but I never wanted to forget what life in the trenches is like. So, I

handled a death penalty appeal with another lawyer and filed a Rule of Criminal

Procedure 11.42 motion in a capital case with another lawyer. So, I tried to do

a little casework without comprising the administrative load. I don't think any

Public Advocate can do that now because of the size of the system and the need

for recruiting. You just think you've got your system filled and then you lose

someone, So, I think that would be impossible today.

MONAHAN: While at DPA were you involved with a jail lawsuit upon appointment of

Judge Keller?

CONNELLY: That was before I was Public Advocate but while I was at DPA. I

represented inmates all across the State in overcrowding cases. At the time, I

represented those inmates, we'd keep winning them in circuit court. I got

appointed, well the Department got appointed to the Fayette County Jail case. I

remember Paul Isaacs calling around trying to find somebody to take the case. I

said, I'll take it, I'll take it! We won the case after a hearing. They held

Corrections, at that time it was a Cabinet, in contempt for failure to move

convicted felons from the county jails into State custody. At the time that we

took those cases the statue said that all felons, includingClass C and Dshad to

be moved out of the in county jails. The statute said all felons had to be

forthwith transferred to a state prison. So, we litigated all over the State, I

don't know, seven or eight cases and we kept winning the cases, butCorrections

wouldn't appeal. So, finally we picked Daviess County because they had terrible

overcrowding, and they didn't like DPA. We felt we might lose; you know

Corrections would win one, we'd lose one, and we'd get an appellate issue on

overcrowding, and we did lose. So, it went up to the Supreme Court of Kentucky

and Justice Leibson wrote the opinion. We won it, I think, 7-0, where the Court

said Corrections had to forthwith transfer state inmates to state prison within

a reasonable period of time. The Fayette County case was remanded and circuit

court held that the Corrections Cabinet had a ton of contempt fines to pay. We

appeared before Judge Keller, who had issued the order,but the Supreme Court had

basically said DPA doesn't get any of this money. It was, I'm afraid I would

misstate the figure, but it was more than half a million dollars, it was a lot

of money. I said,ok; well then,let's implement programs for the people that are

being kept in the county jail. The court said, no and gave all the money to the

city, and the city paid off the library, the new library downtown with the

money. It irritated me, using marble that had been purchased from Apartheid,

South Africa. So, it was a great litigation experience, but a bad result really.

Then the next year they changed the statue to say that Class D felons could be

held in the county jail and then I think later on they said Class C felons could

be held in the county jails. It was a great case and a great experience, but it

didn't change anything but for a moment.

CAPE: In '93 the Kentucky Assembly's Interim Joint Committee on State

Government approved the reorganization of the Department; can you tell us about that?

CONNELLY: Was it in '93? All we did was restructure the Department to be very

lean. There was no Deputy Advocate, there was no General Counsel, we sort of had

Vince Aprile as the General Counsel, but he also handled cases. I guess he

represented the Department, So, I guess we did have a part-time General Counsel.

Then we just had a trial level contract department, appellate department, and

post-conviction. So, we had four branches. We didn't have regional directing

attorneys, which is of course as you grow you got to have that, I think. But we

didn't, I think we had 48 or 50 counties, which was all we covered full-time,

and that's why I implemented the contract administrator position to try and get

some handle on what these private attorneys were doing. Then Ed Monahan came up

with an idea to provide free training to the contract lawyers and the training

has always been one of the best things about the DPA. I mean nationwide anyone

you ask about our training is the best bar none and it's the largest selling

point at law schools. They know they're going to be well trained and whether

they want to be career defenders, which would be my hope, or they just want to

get their feet wet and then do something else. They're not going to get any

better training than that.

CAPE: Were you involved nationally on the public defender issues?

CONNELLY: I'd go to the meetings, but not really. I think our issues at home

were so moneywise, at least the first three years, were so huge, my focus was

kind of like Bob Lawson; I'm in Kentucky and I'm focusing on you. Although of

course, we brought in people during the Task Force to speak about the perfect

system, if you can have one. I think they were very instrumental in helping us

get the recommendations that we got out of that task force. So, yes and no, not

as much as I would have like to have been, but they certainly helped us get

what we needed as far as more funding. They gave more than we gave.

CAPE: The Attorney General asked the Governor to sign five death execution

warrants, which the Governor did January 3, 1996, I believe, could you tell us

about that?

CONNELLY: Well that kind of started my little disagreement with the Governor. I

talked with the Governor and his Cabinet Secretary at the time and said none of

these warrants will be implemented. I tried to explain this nine-step process.

How each case was still moving and that we should had notice, that we had an

informal agreement with the Jones Administration, which that didn't go anywhere.

I don't think the Governor could understand that these things weren't going to

move; that people weren't going to be executed. So, I tried to educate him on

where we were, each case was in the process, and it was like, no, no we just

don't believe it. So, at that point, when his budget came out, that's when he

yanked the capital money. All the five warrants were stopped, of course they

were, and I think kind of started our rocky relationship.

CAPE: What are you most proud of accomplishing?

CONNELLY: Well, I'd have to say one of the highlights of my tenure was I got

together with two other women, Helen Howard Hughes, who was Chair of the Parole

Board, and Marsha Weinstein, who was head of the Kentucky Commission on Women.

There were nine women who were in Pewee Valley, who had been convicted of

various crimes, assault or murder, when battered women syndrome hadn't been

raised really as a defense. This is back, I wrote the date down because I wanted

to remember as you caused me to wipe the cobwebs out of my mind. It was in 1995.

We got together and we decided we would file clemency petitions for these nine

women. So, I appointed lawyers, Marguerite Thomas was kind of the go-to person

and we got nine separate lawyers to file clemency petitions for Governor Jones

because felt he would be understanding of the issue and because he had seen a

quilt at the State Fair called "A Lot of Hurt." The women had made this quilt to

express their feelings. Well it worried me and I think this is one of the

smartest things I did. You have nine clemency petitions; they look like this

(pointing at a stack of paperwork on her desk). There's no human face on it. So,

I said let's do a video and it was still 8-track at the time. So, we created a

video were we introduced each of the women. They had two minutes to tell the

Governor why they should be granted clemency. And we sent the video over along

with the petitions. The Governor watched the video. I don't think he read any of

the positions, but eight of the nine women were granted clemency. It was a nice

way really to leave the office with that kind of change and one of them was a

Fayette County case, and of course Ray Larson went crazy and there's nothing I

like better than that. It was a wonderful way to communicate and put a human

face on these women. There was one gal, Tracy, something from Louisville, whose

father, she ended up assaulting, or murdering her father, I can't remember which

but she was a baby. She was a baby and you saw her on this video and you were

riveted. It's some of the most compelling testimony in two minutes apiece, I've

ever seen. Dave Norat was the person that I said here's what we need to do, and

then Dave Norat said, ok, I can do this. He went and he did.He created a video,

I wish I could show it to you. It really, I think, Ed Monahan taught us all how

to persuade and that was the icing on the cake. So, I'm very proud of that.

CAPE: Is there anything else that you would like to add?

CONNELLY: I guess the improvements in the urban system and maybe getting DPA on

the map as a force to be considered and reckoned with. I think we had a period

of dormancy, in a sense, I don't know if I could have kept up the same kind of

energy that I did in those four years. I don't know how you do it (speaking of

Mr. Monahan); I don't know how Ernie Lewis did it, because it takes over your

life. You can't sleep, you worry, because you've got people, not only the

clients depending on you but you've got all these employees depending on you,

too. And it's just a constant battle, they're going to cut this, you've got to

fight that, they're going to put a cap on your personnel, you've got to fight.

So, it's never ending, but I'd say it is one of the highlights of my career,

very, very high honor. That's it.