Public defender shortage slows the wheels of justice in Washington state courts

Washington state is one of the many areas across the country with a severe shortage of public defenders.

For people who were recently arrested, that can mean long wait times and complicated choices before any attorney is assigned to help them navigate the legal system and maybe go to trial.

"They're supposed to get a public defender basically as soon as they're brought to court," said Daniel Beekman, who covered the shortage for The Seattle Times. "And they're not getting them right away. They're waiting for weeks. In some cases, they've waited for months."

If someone can't afford an attorney for representation, it's a constitutional right to be provided a public defender by the state. Secondly, there's a constitutional right to a speedy trial within 60 to 90 days of being put in custody.

Beekman said that dilemma puts defendants in awkward legal positions, including the instance of one Franklin County defendant who pleaded guilty to get out of jail and avoid waiting for a public defender. That case was then picked up by an appellate attorney in Seattle who questioned if the plea was valid considering the strenuous and legally ambiguous situation the defendant was placed in without representation. In the end, the conviction was dropped.

When someone isn't quickly assigned a public defender, that leaves two options for someone in custody: forego the right to a speedy trial and wait for a defender to become available, or go to trial without representation, an option that can frequently get a case dismissed on constitutional grounds.

"Because there's no public defender there to argue the other side, they'll sort of drop the case 'without prejudice,' which means your case has gone for now," Beekman said. "But we can reserve the right to get you arrested and bring you back to court and start this process all over again at some future date when there's more public defenders."

Beekman said the shortage is at the nexus of several problems. Public defenders also make less than other firms, making it difficult to attract new defenders to rural counties, especially. Beekman said that in places like Asotin and Okanagan counties, defenders frequently work remotely from separate cities and counties.

Additionally, public defenders are given a caseload limit, but those standards were set in the 1970s, and some law experts would like to see the limit lowered further. In King County, where representation is more readily available, public defenders are swamped with high-level felony cases that exacerbate case load limits.

Recently proposed legislative fixes have run into barriers and cutbacks. An internship program to feed new lawyers into public defenders jobs — with the promise of forgiving student loans as a result — is facing pushback over the loan forgiveness provision of the bill. Lowering case limits would also likely result in a short-term backlog of cases, with the hope that more defenders would become available over the long term.

Read Daniel Beekman's story on the shortage by clicking here.

Listen to the full conversation by clicking "play" on the audio icon at the top of this story.