The state of public defense has been dire in Oregon. Overworked and understaffed public defenders aren’t able to meet the constitutionally required minimum standards for fair trials, to the point that last year, the state started to let defendants walk, purely because no one was able to represent them after a week. Without effective counsel and access to it, it is very easy for the state to steamroll the accused toward gambling on a known plea deal or dealing with the uncertainty of trial — making our justice system have less to do with due process than with applied game theory. Oregon has a proposed solution to the public defender crisis, more overworking, and public defenders are suing to fight the recent changes. Salem Reporter has coverage:
The executive director of Marion County’s public defense law firm filed a lawsuit Tuesday, Sept. 30, in Marion County Circuit Court against the Oregon Public Defense Commission after it recently added minimum caseload requirements to the firm’s contract with the state.
The new contracts, which took effect Oct. 1, expect Marion County public defenders to handle the equivalent of 300 misdemeanor cases or 138 serious felonies, like kidnapping or first-degree assault, per year, according to the complaint filed by Shannon Wilson, executive director of the Public Defender of Marion County.
…
The contract would require attorneys handling the highest level felonies to reach a resolution in 11 hours. Those would include people accused of first-degree manslaughter, rape or arson.
For context, a National Public Defense Workload Study found that high-severity felony cases require an average of 286 hours to meet constitutionally required minimum standards of adequate representation. What the hell are public defenders supposed to do with 11 hours? That’s barely enough time to argue against the planted finger prints and the de-watermarked Sora 2 video of the defendant stabbing the victim before they faced the camera and recited their Social Security number! And if the cap on hours wasn’t enough, the contract also came with a pay cut for five people. Unless the goal is to get more bodies in prison beds, whatever trade-offs the Oregon Public Defense Commission thinks are worth pushing public defenders to churn through their clients instead of devoting the time needed to zealously defend them was poorly calculated.
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Oregon Wants To Impose Quotas On Public Defenders. Marion County Lawyers Are Pushing Back [Salem Reporter]
Earlier: Oregon’s Overworked Public Defense System Means Defendants Walk Free
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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim, is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.