A Maryland Court of Appeals ruling that defendants must be allowed to have a lawyer represent them at a bail hearing will reshape the legal process and surely increase costs, lawyers and legal experts said Thursday.

The state’s highest court ruled that a defendant’s bail hearing before a court commissioner is a criminal proceeding and, as such, defendants have a right to legal representation at that initial appearance.

“This opinion recognizes that when someone’s liberty is at stake, counsel should be present,” said Maryland Public Defender Paul B. DeWolfe Jr.

However, it is the state’s policy to bring people arrested for crimes before a commissioner within 24 hours for a review of the charges and a decision on whether they will be released or jailed.

Although the quick turnaround appeals to some defendants, legal representation is almost never available so quickly.

And the state does not provide public defenders to those who cannot afford representation until a bail review by a judge, which is held on the next District Court day.

“Even if [a defendant] can afford an attorney, the attorney may not be given access,” DeWolfe said.

In most of Maryland’s 24 jurisdictions, DeWolfe and private defense lawyers said, attorneys are not allowed into commissioner hearings, which continue around the clock, even if the lawyer arrives before the hearing is over.

But DeWolfe said he is not sure yet how his office will manage to comply with the decision, which is expected to take effect with a court mandate to be issued in 30 days.

The state’s public defense lawyers already are overburdened, and DeWolfe said his office, which has a roughly $84 million budget, is “looking at budgetary needs.”

Asked if Gov. Martin O’Malley will increase funds for the public defenders to meet costs that could accrue from attending more than 100,000 bail hearings, spokeswoman Raquel Guillory said only that the administration is still working on the budget.

But Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Chairman Brian E. Frosh (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda said state lawmakers “don’t have much choice” but to add money to provide public defenders for bail hearings, even though money already is short for existing programs and the state is struggling to close a $1 billion budget gap.

Maryland “is going to have to have a public defender on call at every commissioner’s side at all times, and that is going to be expensive,” said Steven D. Silverman, a prominent criminal defense lawyer and principal in one of the state’s largest law firms.

Silverman said he agrees with the Court of Appeals decision and that he dislikes the state’s court commissioner system.

Maryland court commissioners are not required to be lawyers, and most are not.

“Having counsel there can only be helpful — lots of time defendants are inebriated, intoxicated or scared to death,” Silverman said.

“The question is, can they articulate the reasons that might get them reasonable bail or released,” he said.

“We don’t put a price tag on due process,” said constitutional law professor Jamie B. Raskin, a member of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.

“We’ll have to figure out some mixture of rule changes and funding mechanisms to vindicate the rights of defendants,” Raskin (D-Dist. 20) of Silver Spring said.

One likely adjustment, Silverman said, is to offer defendants the option of delaying their bail hearing until a private or public defense lawyer is present on their behalf.

Asked whether past defendants might seek redress for not being allowed or provided representation, Raskin said, “Every time a new right is declared by a court, it raises the question of retroactivity.”

And retroactivity “would cause tremendous difficulty,” he said.

mhyslop@gazette.net