The number of Oregonians who have been charged with a crime but do not have access to an attorney is growing. Lawmakers want to stem the crisis, but the $707 million budget approved by state lawmakers this week does not include money for any new state trial attorneys.
The latest budget is a signal from state lawmakers that they want to ensure the current dollars are being spent wisely.
State Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, who has been instrumental in crafting the budget, said he sees the constitutional crisis Oregon is facing as being addressed in multiple phases.
“It takes a while to move a battleship around,” Evans said.
At the heart of this ongoing constitutional crisis is the Oregon Public Defense Commission. It’s the agency largely charged with fixing the problem, and it has been in turmoil itself. State lawmakers have carved out funds for more contract attorneys, and the state trial attorneys will be able to take on more cases than previously.
The latest budget by state lawmakers is a 14.8% budget increase from the previous biennium, and will fund a total of 180 positions. The budget bill, House Bill 5031, carves out more than $2 million to pay attorneys in the counties facing the largest crisis — Coos, Douglas, Jackson, Marion, Multnomah and Washington — to take on more cases. There is also money for training and recruiting at certain law schools and to allow for some law students to start taking on misdemeanor cases.
Sen. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford, said he was hopeful that with the budget and new leadership at the public defense commission, “we are going to have a turnaround on the unrepresented crisis in this state.”
In June, the interim head of the public defense commission unveiled a detailed memo to the governor suggesting how to address the ongoing crisis. It was wide-ranging and suggests identifying a pool of attorneys throughout the state who could take on extra cases and establishing diversion programs to allow for some people to bypass court.
At the end of May, there were more than 100 people in jail who didn’t have access to an attorney. There were nearly 4,400 people who needed an attorney but did not have one.
Both the U.S. and Oregon Constitutions require the state to pay for attorneys for people who cannot afford one. For years, Oregon has been violating the Constitution.
In 2023, state lawmakers created a new group of public defense attorneys as state employees and created new methods and oversight for how the state contracts with the remaining caseload.
House Bill 2614, which is currently still in committee, addresses the policy issues when it comes to the commission, including how the board members and executive director are appointed and can be fired.
Peter Buckley, a former Democratic lawmaker from Ashland, is a member of the public defense commission. He said he’s pleased to see the Legislature increase the overall investment into the public defense commission, but he remains worried about the overall crisis. Although the budget doesn’t call for any new state trial division attorneys, there’s a chance new contract attorneys could be hired. Still, Buckley said, it might not be enough.
“We have a workforce issue,” he wrote in a text message. “And we need to significantly increase the number of public defenders.”
