PORTLAND, Ore. — On any given day in Oregon jails, 40 or so people remain in custody without a public defender to represent them in court. Some have waited weeks for a lawyer, others have waited months. Several hundred more people charged with crimes but not in jail also await their constitutional right to counsel.
The crisis is severe, and not limited to Oregon. Even before the pandemic, many court systems nationwide were unable to meet demand for public defenders, but the crunch worsened after COVID-19 slowed courtroom operations. In New York City, for example, hundreds of lawyers who work for public defense agencies have quit their jobs in the past year, citing low pay and severe overwork.
In Oregon, the problem is so acute that civil rights advocates filed a lawsuit this spring to force a response from Democratic Gov. Kate Brown and the state agency that oversees a $339 million public defense budget. The lawsuit demands that the state either fulfill its legal obligation to provide counsel to all defendants who request a public defender, or dismiss the cases if it cannot provide lawyers. At least 274 people in Multnomah County, which includes Portland and is the state’s largest, were unrepresented by lawyers when the suit was filed in May.
