Does a state lawmaker qualify as an independent contractor when hired by Rhode Island’s court system to represent clients who can’t otherwise rely on a public defender?
That was the question that kept the Rhode Island Ethics Commission debating for more than 40 minutes as its members weighed Rep. Jason Knight’s bid to rejoin the judiciary’s roster of attorneys representing indigent clients.
Commission staff say the state’s ethics code clearly bars Knight from returning to the court’s list because he’s a lawmaker and thus an independent contractor that would be paid by the court. But the panel is now exploring whether there’s a way to let him back without running afoul of its own “revolving door” rule.
Knight, a Barrington Democrat, had been on the list before his election to the Rhode Island House of Representatives in 2016. In 2019, he requested his name be removed because the rates the criminal courts paid were not high enough.
“The cases were basically practice killers,” he said in an interview after the ethics commission meeting. “To do them correctly, you would have to set aside just about everything in your world and (as) criminal defense lawyers, we’re solo outfits, you need to be thoughtful in what your two hands can do on any given day.”
At the time, court-appointed lawyers were paid by the judiciary $90 an hour for representing clients facing Class 1 felony charges for crimes like rape, kidnapping and robbery. The rate was $60 an hour for Class 2 crimes such as breaking and entering, larceny, possession of a stolen motor vehicle and certain drug offenses.
Lawyers representing someone accused of murder were paid $100 an hour.
In April, the Rhode Island Supreme Court increased the range from $112 for most cases to $142 per hour for clients facing murder charges. Knight now says he wants to return to the court’s rotating list as a way to gain some additional revenue as he “thinks about what the future’s going to bring.”
“I need to get back on the horse,” Knight told the Ethics Commission.
There’s just one problem: The state ethics code bars elected officials from taking state jobs until they’ve been out of the General Assembly for at least a year. That’s the position staff attorney Lynn Radiches urged the commissioners to keep.
“Indigent clients do have a right to an attorney, they do not have a right to Mr. Knight as their attorney.” she said. “I don’t write the rules, but I’ve become pretty good at interpreting them.”
Officials can work for the state if they held the position at the time of their election, but Radiches said because Knight withdrew from the court list in 2019 he is ineligible to return.
But commissioners argue that just because Knight would be appointed by the court to a client does not mean he is necessarily working for the state.
“He is providing services, as an attorney, to his client — just like a private attorney would be,” said commissioner Frank Cenerini. “And he, or any person providing indigent services, is still bound by the legal code of ethics.”
That’s not how John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island and a longtime observer of the commission, sees it.
“The money is coming from the state of Rhode Island,” Marion said in an interview. “That’s the point of the rule.”
Chairman Lauren E. Jones acknowledged that the court may cut Knight’s checks, but said it’s only in order to represent a third party.
“He’s not representing the interest of his contractor,” Jones argued.
The panel ultimately rejected its staff’s advisory opinion but stopped short of ruling in Knight’s favor. Instead, it directed staff to draft a new opinion on what legally defines an independent contractor in Rhode Island.
Should the commission grant an exception for Knight, Marion warns it could set a dangerous precedent.
“If we start down that path, that only leads to a place where there is no enforceable code of ethics and that’s not a good place,” Marion said.
The new advisory opinion is expected to be complete by the time the panel reconvenes in September.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
