Daunting fix to fund right to public defenders

By The Herald Editorial Board

An opinion now awaited from the Washington state Supreme Court could be among its most consequential, comparable in scope to others in recent memory, including its decision in the McCleary lawsuit regarding the state’s provision of ample funding for public education, and the more recent Blake decision that forced lawmakers into a years-long push-and-pull over penalties for drug possession.

This time, however, the opinion doesn’t directly involve a lawsuit. Instead, a decision would follow complaints over several years regarding the caseload burden of public defenders — lawyers paid by the public to represent defendants who can’t afford an attorney, a 6th Amendment right affirmed in a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision — as well as a recent report and recommendations that call for a significant reduction in caseloads for those providing indigent defense in counties’ and cities’ court systems.

And like McCleary and Blake, providing that right to legal representation will likely come down to issues of financial resources and who pays the tab.

In recent years, public defenders have warned of a building crisis among overworked and understaffed public defense offices that has burned out those attorneys, forcing some from the work, discouraging potential hires, and causing delays that have left defendants — disproportionately low-income and/or from BIPOC communities — in jail awaiting trials for weeks, or even resulting in the dismissal of charges, denying justice to victims.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-daunting-fix-to-fund-right-to-public-defenders/