Marion County judges and the chief public defense contractor in Salem are engaged in a new tussle over public defense services in the state.
Shannon Wilson, executive director of Public Defenders of Marion County, Inc., filed four motions Wednesday requesting that public defenders in the county be permitted to withdraw from pending cases and decline future appointments until their caseloads are reduced. Wilson’s filing argued that piling new cases on defense attorneys’ already huge caseloads amounts to a violation of their clients’ rights to legal representation.
By Friday, four Marion County judges rejected Wilson’s filings, saying Wilson was not the assigned attorney or a party to the cases. Wilson responded by filing four motions Saturday to be substituted in as the attorney on those cases. The judges have not yet responded to Wilson’s filings, according to court records.
Wilson’s efforts are the latest development in a statewide public defender crisis that has seen attorneys leaving the profession in droves and caused historic shortages across Oregon.
Three of the judges – Channing Bennett, Lindsay Partridge and Donald Abar – along with Marion County’s presiding judge, Tracy Prall, could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
Judge Courtland Geyer declined to comment.
Public defenders represent indigent defendants who can’t afford to hire an attorney but are constitutionally guaranteed one in state courts across Oregon.
The shortage of public defenders has created a backlog in circuit courts. Since last year, Multnomah County has dismissed more than 300 mostly nonviolent criminal cases over the lack of defense lawyers.
Wilson is being advised by Stephen Hanlon, who helped produce a 2022 American Bar Association study that found Oregon only has a third of the attorneys it needs to provide public defense and needs about 1,300 more.
A frequently suggested remedy is to increase the pay of public defenders, so their salaries are on par with prosecutors or private attorneys. The Legislature will consider a slate of potential fixes this session, including possibly doubling public defenders’ pay.
But Hanlon said extreme caseloads – not salaries – are pushing most public defenders out of the profession.
“Of course they need to be paid more and have loan forgiveness of their law school debts, but they don’t complain about that as much as they complain, ‘I want to be able to represent my clients competently,’” Hanlon said in an interview. “It’s called ‘the great resignation,’ and it’s why we’re losing public defenders all over the country.”
A public defender cannot recommend a plea or a trial to a client until they’ve completed their investigation of a case. But overwhelmed public defenders don’t have enough time to thoroughly investigate their cases, build relationships with their clients or “meaningfully challenge” the state’s cases, according to Hanlon.
Their clients – many of whom are experiencing poverty, homelessness, mental illness or addiction – often get convictions they might have avoided had their public defender had more time to competently represent them, Hanlon said.
“We need to go from a criminal processing system to a criminal justice system, because these cases are just being processed,” Hanlon said. “And the consequences of a conviction will destroy lives with respect to employment, housing, public benefits – a whole range of things for conduct that does not violate public safety.”
There are currently 85 people in custody awaiting an attorney in Oregon, according to data from the state judicial department.
— Catalina Gaitán, cgaitan@oregonian.com, @catalingaitan_
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