PORT TOWNSEND — The Board of Jefferson County Commissioners will send a letter to the state Supreme Court focused on the state’s constitutional obligation to fund indigent defenders.
“Our goal is to provide the best indigent defense that we can, which is challenging in a rural area,” Commissioner Kate Dean said Monday.
The letter states the county is currently paying for 97 percent of the indigent defense cases — $920,076 in 2024 — while the state only provided $29,406. A change in caseload requirements, recommended by the state Bar Association, could mean a 150 percent increase to the current budget, according to the letter.
Two thirds of the county’s budget is already dedicated to the justice system, according to the letter.
“With an inability to hire enough defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys will be incentivized to charge fewer cases, providing less opportunity for early intervention through therapeutic courts or other remedial measures,” the letter states. “Only the most serious cases might be charged, creating a culture of permissiveness around crime, which is demoralizing to communities. Offenders of lesser crimes may become offenders of more serious felonies. These are the very real potential outcomes in Jefferson County.”
The board is submitting its letter following a prompt from county Prosecuting Attorney James Kennedy at the board’s July 22 meeting. Kennedy expressed concern regarding an upcoming decision to be made by the state Supreme Court, which would reduce indigent defense lawyers’ caseload standards.
The Supreme Court is deciding whether or not to accept a proposal from the Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts seeking to amend indigent the standards, based on the state Bar Association’s new standards, adopted in March.
Caseload standards refer to the annual number of cases that can be taken on by an indigent defense attorney. Those standards are broken down into categories of misdemeanors and felonies. As it is, public defenders can defend up to 400 misdemeanors and 150 felonies annually. The amendment would reduce those numbers to 150 and 47, respectively.
Dean drafted the letter with the support from Kennedy, Dean said.
Dean also received input from local public defenders, she said, specifically noting Jefferson Associated Counsel (JAC), which the county contracts with for most of its indigent defense.
“All of the public defenders who I spoke with said that they feel they would provide better service to their clients if they had less demanded of them,” Dean said. “I don’t think it’s actually the standards we oppose, it’s the financial burden and the inability to find appropriate defenders.”
Rather than take a strong stance on the potential of caseload reduction, the board’s letter focuses on the state’s constitutional obligation to fund indigent defense.
Kennedy said that while he’s concerned about the effect on the county budget, his main worries are that the county will not be able to hire the new lawyers required to fulfill their duties and that the county will experience the fallout of untried cases.
“I’m concerned that defense attorneys that would be needed to carry out this work simply don’t exist,” Kennedy said. “If you throw money at it, that’s great, but it’s not necessarily going to make attorneys materialize where they don’t already exist, particularly out on the Olympic Peninsula.”
The state is facing a shortage of public defenders, Kennedy said.
He added that the reduction in caseloads standard is, “a bad faith attempt to force prosecutors to stop enforcing the law. If you follow what our Supreme Court has been doing over the past few years, I think this belief is fully justified.”
JAC could not be reached for comment.
In July, its director, Richard Davies, expressed he was not concerned about the change, saying a reduction in caseloads would expand defenders capacity to provide higher quality defense services. Also, he said the consequence of a diminished capacity for the prosecutor to try cases would not be a major loss.
“Somewhere between a fourth and a third of district court cases are driving while license suspended, or driving without a valid license,” said Davies, who added that the county should handle these by “charging them as infractions or not charging them at all. There are other counties in the state that don’t touch them, because it’s just not cost effective for anybody.”
Public comment is open on the amendment until Oct. 31. Comments may be sent by email to supreme@courts.wa.gov or by mail to P.O. Box 40929, Olympia, WA 98504-0929.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
