Gaps found in legal defense

By Brad Shannon | The Olympian • Published April 13, 2008

A new report shows state funding is helping some counties make sure poorer people accused of crimes get fairly defended in court, but there still are glaring gaps in the legal system.

The state Office of Public Defense, led by Joanne Moore, released its second annual report Friday.

Seattle University law professor Robert Boruchowitz called the situation a crisis because poor juvenile defendants still are appearing in courts in 17 counties without a public-funded lawyer.

The report shows low pay and high caseloads are a problem mainly in smaller or rural communities.

State lawmakers agreed for the first time in 2006 to provide money to county public-defense programs at the trial level, and they boosted funding last year to $6.5 million a year. That's a fraction of the $87 million a year paid by counties.

The extra money and a pilot program that started in 2006 in Thurston County and other jurisdictions improved the quality of defense, Moore said. One Thurston County judge said the pilot program that funds District Court in Olympia "made the biggest difference in the courtroom he's seen in 25 years," Moore said.

The national movement to ensure legal defense to the indigent got its impetus in 1963 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of a destitute Florida man, Clarence Earl Gideon, convicted of a break-in without having talked to a lawyer, according to the Office of Public Defense.

The decision ensured legal defense to all citizens accused of felonies, and some want Washington to meet a goal of adequate defense before the 50th anniversary of the Gideon decision in 2013.

Boruchowitz said Washington has lagged other states in moving to state financing for the ­public-defense system. But he said better state funding is only one solution.

Another is to divert cases out of the criminal justice system, which Boruchowitz said King County has done with many driving-while-license-suspended cases. That reduced demand on county jail space and ate up less court time, thus freeing other local money for defenders, he said.

Sally Harrison, director of the Office of Assigned Counsel in Thurston County, said Thurston County has a similar adult criminal-diversion program run by the private Friendship Diversion Services. It was set up in the 1980s by former Prosecutor Patrick Sutherland, allowing charges to be dismissed for nonviolent crimes such as forgery and theft if defendants make restitution and do community service.

Harrison's office, which received $234,631 in state funding in December, has grown from 10 staff members to 24 in three years and now provides legal assistance to destitute adults accused of misdemeanors, she said.

For years, Thurston County failed to ensure representation at preliminary appearances for adult misdemeanor cases, but it has always provided representation for juveniles and adults accused of felonies, Harrison said.

The public defender report does not identify counties that fail to meet the constitutional needs of the accused, but separate information provided by the Office of Public Defense to the Legislature lists 17 counties failing to serve juveniles at initial appearances in court.

Thurston and Mason counties are not on the list, but Grays Harbor County is.