‘Headed for a disaster:’ ACLU asks Idaho Supreme Court to order reform of the public defense system

Alleging Idaho’s long-critiqued public defense system has worsened despite the state’s reform effort, the ACLU of Idaho asked the Idaho Supreme Court to intervene.

Following the ACLU of Idaho’s 2015 lawsuit that alleged Idaho’s public defense system violated low-income people’s right to counsel guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Idaho passed a law to centralize county-level public defenders into a statewide agency, called the Office of the State Public Defender.

In October, Idaho officially transferred public defense from Idaho’s 44 counties to that agency.

Since then, some public defenders quit, citing new pay cuts; an Owyhee County judge ordered the new public defender agency head, Eric Fredericksen, to appear in court to explain why the rural county near Boise had two hearings without a public defender present; and the Idaho Supreme Court required the State Public Defender’s Office to pay for appeal transcripts.

Citing statements in court and written testimony from attorneys and people deemed legally indigent, ACLU of Idaho alleges in its Dec. 23 emergency motion that mass resignations have left public defenders with large workloads and that “countless indigent defendants have appeared in courts” across Idaho without representation from the State Public Defender’s Office, and that some “struggled for weeks, if not months, to have any communication with their counsel.”

ACLU of Idaho asked the Idaho Supreme Court to order the state to release from custody legally indigent people who haven’t communicated with attorneys within seven days of a public defense agency appointment, or if attorneys for them haven’t appeared to assist at bond arguments, preliminary hearings, trials, or sentencings.

“Idaho’s public defense system is headed for a disaster that was not just predictable, but actually predicted,” attorneys for ACLU of Idaho write in the motion. “… Because the executive and legislative branches have repeatedly failed to quell the crisis, it will persist if the judiciary does not intervene.”

ACLU of Idaho asks court to require regular updates on State Public Defender’s Office

ACLU also asked the court to rule in an injunction that Idaho must create and implement a plan to remedy its alleged constitutional violations; to remand the case to district court to appoint an independent monitor to oversee Idaho’s progress; and asked the court to require weekly, monthly and quarterly reports by the Idaho State Public Defender’s Office.

The Idaho State Public Defender’s Office could not be immediately reached for comment Thursday. Agency officials have defended the transition as a complicated overhaul that officials are still working to improve. Officials have acknowledged staff turnover, but said many vacant positions had been filled and that most public defenders actually saw a pay raise under the new system.

Mass resignations in Idaho leave public defense attorneys with ‘impossible caseloads,’ ACLU alleges

ACLU of Idaho’s lawsuit claims mass resignations during the switch to Idaho’s State Public Defender’s Office have left public defense attorneys with “impossible caseloads,” and “put others in incredibly difficult situations where they have to show up not knowing that they would be expected to defend the client they ended up representing.”

About a quarter of attorneys in Ada County’s institutional office have resigned since mid-August, at least some due to pay cuts under the new system, the lawsuit says. Kootenai County’s public defense office only has 11 of the 26 public defenders it needs, the lawsuit says, while Canyon County is down to 23 defenders from 32 before the transition.

The public defender in Idaho’s First Judicial District handles all Shoshone County public defense cases. That workload, estimated at 275-300 active cases, would typically be a “full-time docket for two attorneys,” the lawsuit says.

One day in Kootenai County, the lawsuit claims, no defendants in 17 misdemeanor arraignments had counsel. One day in Ada County, counsel with the State Public Defender’s Office appeared on behalf of four defendants but “barely had time to speak with any of them.”

The lawsuit includes written testimony from attorneys and defendants.

In one, a Kootenai County defendant says they showed up in court three times without their attorney in October and November, even though they called the State Public Defense Office “every other day after their arraignment,” the lawsuit states. In another, a defendant said they made the eight-hour drive from Boise to Bonner County three times “over a couple of months … only to have proceedings repeatedly continued because (the State Public Defender’s Office) counsel withdrew from his case,” the lawsuit says.

“Overstretched defenders — with inadequate access to client files — also struggled to make adequate bond arguments on behalf of their clients,” the lawsuit says. “Clients without counsel, or unprepared defenders, are now put in the position of having to either waive their right to speedy trial or move forward with their defense effectively alone.”

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.