Article
New Study in Hand, Public Defenders Fight County Budget Cuts
On September 30th, ten public defenders showed up at a King County budget hearing to protest the latest cuts to the Office of the Public Defender. Like the rest of the aggrieved groups that came to testify, the band of public defenders stood together behind the microphone to lay out their case against general fund cuts.
But unlike other interest groups who crowded around the mike to testify that night, the public defenders came prepared with their Exhibit A: An entire study they say backs up their case. The Spangenberg report, an independent study on the Office of the Public Defender delivered to the county in June, concludes public defenders are overburdened by King County's payment system, which pays a flat rate for all cases argued by public defenders, instead of paying a flexible rate based on the complexity of the case.
The Spangenberg also concludes that public defenders in King County work 20 percent over capacity (as the study puts it, they were an average of 48 hours a week.
The county, based on recommendations from KC Executive Dow Constantine, has implemented some minor findings of the study, mostly with regard to structuring of the agency and transparency in decision making. But they didn't implement any of the suggestions that would specifically deal with concerns about workload spend more money on the public defenders. Which means that, according to the findings of the report, the public defenders are still overburdened and underpaid.
Now, three of the county's four public defense contractors—the Northwest Defender Association, The Defender Association, and SCRAP—are using the recommendations, and working with the SEIU, to lobby the county to rethink the cuts, asking the county to take more from prosecutors to spare the public defenders. Despite an adjusted 2010 budget that gave public defenders more money for increased caseloads, the prosecutors and the public defenders were both cut about 9 percent in the 2011, after the county's over-budget expenditures on the public defenders are taken into account. (No cuts will be made if county executive Dow Constantine's proposal for a 0.2 percent income tax is voted in next month.)
The public defenders say the study indicates the attorneys are overworked to the point that they can no longer provide their constitutionally mandate to provide adequate legal defense for anyone who can't afford it.
To remedy the situation, they say the county needs to cut more from the Prosecuting Attorney's Office, and less from the Office of the Public Defender—partly because the public defenders, unlike the prosecutors, have no control over the amount of cases they must provide with counsel, and partly because overbudgeting the prosecutors' office would unfairly tip the scales of justice.
“It is not enough to pare equally from the prosecutor’s office and the public defenders’ office,” testified Micheline Murphy, a public defender at the Northwest Defender Association, one of the private defender firms that contracts with the county.
The public defenders have also told the county that letting the public defender service become inadequate could end up costing the county money— for example, having to provide new lawyers to defendants who complain that they are not being provided adequate service. At worst, someone could file a lawsuit against the county (Murphy points to a lawsuit against Grant County by the ACLU, which resulted in a settlement by the Central Washington county).
But the county says there is no imbalance now between the prosecutor's office and the public defenders. The Prosecutor's office has faced their own burden of cuts—an identical 9.1 percent of their budgets, in Executive Constantine's proposal. And unlike the public defenders, the prosecutors did not have any funding restored in the 2010 budget. "You can either argue that the percentage cut to the two agencies was the same or you can argue that public defense was cut less than the Prosecuting Attorney's Office because the PAO didn’t get any money for caseload increases," says county budget director Dwight Dively.
Additionally, determining at which point the public defenders are no longer fulfilling that mandate is difficult. There's no standard metric—no "bright line," according to Dively—for what constitutes effective counsel.
A few minutes after the public defenders testified at the hearing, Council Member Larry Phillips was outside shaking Murphy's hand, complimenting her on her testimony. Since then, Phillips' chief of staff has met with the group of public defenders, and the council itself has flagged the issue for further review, but no one on the council has made a commitment to the group.
The Office of the Public Defender has also been working separately with the county to restore public defense funding.
The public defenders say they'll continue to send representatives to the county budget hearings, and will keep trying to lobby the council to restore some of their funding. Otherwise, they say the imbalance they see in funding between the prosecutors' office and the public defenders will lead to a precarious situation.
"One of the hallmarks of American society is that our criminal justice system is fair," says Murphy. "You can't have justice if you don't pay for it. When it comes down to the last penny, we need to preserve what's at our core."
But unlike other interest groups who crowded around the mike to testify that night, the public defenders came prepared with their Exhibit A: An entire study they say backs up their case. The Spangenberg report, an independent study on the Office of the Public Defender delivered to the county in June, concludes public defenders are overburdened by King County's payment system, which pays a flat rate for all cases argued by public defenders, instead of paying a flexible rate based on the complexity of the case.
The Spangenberg also concludes that public defenders in King County work 20 percent over capacity (as the study puts it, they were an average of 48 hours a week.
The county, based on recommendations from KC Executive Dow Constantine, has implemented some minor findings of the study, mostly with regard to structuring of the agency and transparency in decision making. But they didn't implement any of the suggestions that would specifically deal with concerns about workload spend more money on the public defenders. Which means that, according to the findings of the report, the public defenders are still overburdened and underpaid.
Now, three of the county's four public defense contractors—the Northwest Defender Association, The Defender Association, and SCRAP—are using the recommendations, and working with the SEIU, to lobby the county to rethink the cuts, asking the county to take more from prosecutors to spare the public defenders. Despite an adjusted 2010 budget that gave public defenders more money for increased caseloads, the prosecutors and the public defenders were both cut about 9 percent in the 2011, after the county's over-budget expenditures on the public defenders are taken into account. (No cuts will be made if county executive Dow Constantine's proposal for a 0.2 percent income tax is voted in next month.)
The public defenders say the study indicates the attorneys are overworked to the point that they can no longer provide their constitutionally mandate to provide adequate legal defense for anyone who can't afford it.
To remedy the situation, they say the county needs to cut more from the Prosecuting Attorney's Office, and less from the Office of the Public Defender—partly because the public defenders, unlike the prosecutors, have no control over the amount of cases they must provide with counsel, and partly because overbudgeting the prosecutors' office would unfairly tip the scales of justice.
“It is not enough to pare equally from the prosecutor’s office and the public defenders’ office,” testified Micheline Murphy, a public defender at the Northwest Defender Association, one of the private defender firms that contracts with the county.
The public defenders have also told the county that letting the public defender service become inadequate could end up costing the county money— for example, having to provide new lawyers to defendants who complain that they are not being provided adequate service. At worst, someone could file a lawsuit against the county (Murphy points to a lawsuit against Grant County by the ACLU, which resulted in a settlement by the Central Washington county).
But the county says there is no imbalance now between the prosecutor's office and the public defenders. The Prosecutor's office has faced their own burden of cuts—an identical 9.1 percent of their budgets, in Executive Constantine's proposal. And unlike the public defenders, the prosecutors did not have any funding restored in the 2010 budget. "You can either argue that the percentage cut to the two agencies was the same or you can argue that public defense was cut less than the Prosecuting Attorney's Office because the PAO didn’t get any money for caseload increases," says county budget director Dwight Dively.
Additionally, determining at which point the public defenders are no longer fulfilling that mandate is difficult. There's no standard metric—no "bright line," according to Dively—for what constitutes effective counsel.
A few minutes after the public defenders testified at the hearing, Council Member Larry Phillips was outside shaking Murphy's hand, complimenting her on her testimony. Since then, Phillips' chief of staff has met with the group of public defenders, and the council itself has flagged the issue for further review, but no one on the council has made a commitment to the group.
The Office of the Public Defender has also been working separately with the county to restore public defense funding.
The public defenders say they'll continue to send representatives to the county budget hearings, and will keep trying to lobby the council to restore some of their funding. Otherwise, they say the imbalance they see in funding between the prosecutors' office and the public defenders will lead to a precarious situation.
"One of the hallmarks of American society is that our criminal justice system is fair," says Murphy. "You can't have justice if you don't pay for it. When it comes down to the last penny, we need to preserve what's at our core."
