1ÅÝֱܽ²¥

“We just have gone past that tipping point,� Deschutes County Circuit Court Presiding Judge Wells Ashby said in an April 30 interview.

More people charged sit in jail without attorneys

Ashby, held a hearing on April 30 for a docket of five people charged with crimes and sitting in jail without attorneys. Judge Beth Bagley held another Tuesday, this time with the task of appointing counsel to 12 felony cases. The cases included people charged with rape, sexual abuse and strangulation, among other crimes.

Both hearings were largely successful in assigning attorneys to cases, which is a right granted under the U.S. Constitution, but the shortage isn’t going away anytime soon. That’s because it’s much larger than just a few cases without representation.

The most urgent concern for the court — and for all involved — has been unrepresented indigent defendants sitting in jail.

“It’s hard to tell somebody their case is less important than somebody else’s,� Ashby said.

Shortage of public defenders not new problem

The public defender shortage has been building for years.

A 2022 report from the said Oregon had only 31% of the public defense lawyers needed to handle its swath of adult and juvenile caseloads. A follow-up to that was published by the Oregon Public Defense Commission . The commission, which is the state agency responsible for assigning legal representation to those who can’t afford their own, found that the state now has about 47% of the public defenders it needs, but that number excludes juvenile caseloads.

Some attribute the shortage’s root causes to less lucrative pay for public defenders, burnout, low job satisfaction and high stress levels, Deschutes County’s high cost of living and the commission’s failure to fulfill its duty.

At the April 30 hearing, Deputy District Attorney Mary Anderson said the problem is “a wholesale bureaucratic failure� on the part of the state public defense commission.

She added that concerns aren’t limited to denying a person’s constitutional right to representation. Those concerns also entail the risk of eroding the public’s confidence in the court and furthering the trauma that crime victims experience, Anderson said at the hearing.

Despite the state Legislature giving to the commission, the shortage has continued to worsen in Deschutes County, she said.

Rebecca Williams, a court clerk who said she now spends a significant portion of her workday trying to wrangle attorneys for defendants, was called to the witness stand at the April 30 hearing.

“It’s going to get worse,� she said.

Not enough public defenders to go around

The commission attributes the shortage’s recent escalation to workforce issues.

“The public defense providers in Deschutes County face an acute workforce shortage. Prior to these staffing issues, Deschutes County had minimal to no unrepresented defendants,� Lisa Taylor, the commission’s government relations manager, said in an emailed statement from the commission.

Deschutes County’s three primary public defense groups will collectively lose six attorneys by June, the statement said.

“Two of those lawyers are leaving public defense to join district attorney’s offices, where they will receive a pay increase and be eligible for PERS (the Public Employees Retirement System). One lawyer is moving from one public defender office to another in the same county, and the remaining three lawyers are leaving the practice,� the statement said.

Data from the Oregon Judicial Department shows an exponential increase in unrepresented people in custody in Deschutes County since March and culminating with a major spike in late April and the first week of May.

As of Thursday, a remaining 10 cases in Deschutes County were awaiting representation from the commission — three in custody and seven out of custody, according to data from the judicial department. That’s a small fraction of the more than 2,800 people who are unrepresented in Oregon.

Shortage leads to some not accepting new cases

Public defenders come from three primary law groups in Deschutes County.

The escalating shortage of defenders has forced the largest of the county’s three public defense groups, Deschutes Defenders, to temporarily “shut off,� which means it won’t accept any new cases for a certain amount of time.

Another group, Atlas Law Group, is teetering on the edge of its own “shut off.�

In the past week, Atlas has taken on 35 cases, which is roughly triple the usual weekly caseload. It pushes the group’s attorneys, who contract with the state commission on a part-time basis, near the “shut off� line, said Raun Atkinson, the group’s owner and lead attorney.

Atkinson attributes the county’s growing unrepresented list to a confluence of events. But staffing issues are often temporary, Atkinson said.

“I guess I’m hopeful that we’re gonna see our way through this,� he said.

Fully staffed, Deschutes Defenders, a nonprofit, ought to have 18 attorneys, said Joel Wirtz, the nonprofit’s director. It’s down to 14 now. That’s resulted in added pressure on the remaining attorneys to take on more cases, which has its limitations, he said.

“The criminal justice system is really a downstream effect of other things that should be changed in our system,� he said.

That means more housing so professionals can live in Bend and an examination of the existing mental health system to direct people out of jail and courts and into proper treatment, Wirtz said. These are long-term solutions to immediate problems, he added.

“The problem isn’t going to change overnight,� Wirtz said.

He said that all of the players — the courts, the prosecution, the public defenders, the state — will have to make difficult choices so long as the volume of cases in Deschutes County outpaces attorney capacity.