The crisis has led to the dismissal of dozens of cases and left an estimated 500 defendants statewide without legal representation.
Public defender Drew Flood with the nonprofit law firm Metropolitan Public Defender looks his files for the criminal cases he is currently working on in this May 5, 2022 photo in Portland, Ore. Flood, who was hired eight months ago by the firm, is carrying 100 cases and says he sometimes has so many cases he can't remember details such as what is in the client's police report or what plea deal is being offered.
“There is a public defense crisis raging across this country,” said Jason D. Williamson, executive director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at New York University School of Law, who helped prepare the filing. “But Oregon is among only a handful of states that is now entirely depriving people of their constitutional right to counsel on a daily basis, leaving countless indigent defendants without access to an attorney for months at a time.
A report by the American Bar Association released in January found Oregon has 31% of the public defenders it needs. Every existing attorney would have to work more than 26 hours a day during the work week to cover the caseload, the authors said. In two other cases, the lawsuit alleges, plaintiffs were released from custody after their arrest and told to call a number to be assigned a defense attorney. They left voicemails and called repeatedly and have not had any reply, the complaint says. They show up for hearings alone and have their cases pushed back because no public defenders are available.
In the current crisis, 23% of people waiting for an attorney were Black statewide on a recent day, despite the fact that Black people overall make up 3% of Oregon’s population.
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