Editorial | Public defender shortage is a WA crisis that requires local and state action

The local justice system is in crisis.

Recent incidents highlight the troubling trend. Police arrest someone. That person is charged with serious crimes. Then that person winds up back on the streets because there aren’t enough public defense attorneys to represent him.

Local and state governments must work together to address this crisis with urgency to preserve confidence in the judicial system, protect public safety and honor the constitutional rights of all.

This month, Benton County Superior Court Judge Diana Ruff ordered the bail eliminated for six suspects because they didn’t have legal representation for a lengthy period.

They are innocent until proven guilty, but the crimes they are accused of include burglary, various sexual offenses and rape. That should worry people. Someone credibly accused of sexual assault is free — not because the courts found him innocent but because the government is struggling to uphold his constitutional rights.

Don’t fault the judge. Her duty is to uphold the rights of all, and defendants have the right to an attorney and a speedy trial. When the state can’t provide both, it would be unjust to leave someone languishing in a jail cell. The public defender shortage is a national problem, often most acutely felt in rural communities.

Last year, the National Public Defense Workload Study, published by the American Bar Association, the National Center for State Courts and the RAND Justice Policy Program, recommended that public defenders handle no more than 59 cases annually for the least serious felonies.

And while the Washington State Bar Association already decided that felony attorneys shouldn’t handle more than 47 cases year, there aren’t enough lawyers to meet those goals.

In the short term, counties must increase their funding for public defense, ensuring that people accused of serious crimes have adequate representation and public defenders are adequately compensated for their vital work. The alternative is releasing people accused of crimes or having judges recruit attorneys at much higher public cost.

Both Benton and Franklin counties raised the pay for defense attorneys last year but they must find ways to keep the attorneys they have, attract more and possibly hire more support staff.

For the long term, Washington state legislators must act.

Sen. Nikki Torres, R-Pasco, has proposed multiple bills to address the problem, but they have faced strong headwinds in the Democrat-controlled Washington Legislature.

One of her bills would have had the state cover half of the cost of public defense by 2028 and would have directed the Office of Public Defense to recommend other reforms for the Legislature to consider. Another bill would have recreated an Indigent Defense Task Force to evaluate the defender shortage. Both bills failed in committee.

A third bill passed and was signed by the governor. It prioritizes funding for training public defenders and prosecutors who will work in rural areas. That’s contingent on lawmakers actually allocating the money, though.

Lawmakers stripped a provision from the bill that would have paid off law school loans for attorneys who go into public defense, an odd result given the current national Democratic focus on student debt relief. Torres’ ideas to ease the public defender shortage and her focus on rural communities deserved better in Olympia.

Perhaps lawmakers will return to them in the future as the crisis worsens, but Torres won’t be around for long to fight for them. Democrats convinced a judge to draw new legislative districts that moved the Latina Republican out of the district she now represents.

The State Bar Association also has a role to play by actively recruiting attorneys for public defense cases.

By collaborating with law schools, legal firms and individual attorneys, the Bar Association can help bridge the gap and provide the legal representation every accused individual deserves.

If local governments don’t come up with money and state lawmakers don’t help, it’s only a matter of time until an accused defendant who is set free for lack of a public defender commits another terrible crime that might otherwise have been prevented.

This story was originally published June 15, 2024 at 5:00 AM.