Lawmakers pushing to bolster public defender services – Shaw Local

About 73% of public defenders in Iowa graduated from the state’s two law schools – Drake University and the University of Iowa – while the other 27% came from elsewhere.

These attorneys work at 20 different offices, which presently combine for 11 job openings specifically for attorneys, along with other positions for investigative and clerical roles. This and other information is readily available at spd.iowa.gov, including a table showing how much each of Iowa’s 99 counties is expected to pay for juvenile expenses into the Indigent Defense Fund.

The network in Illinois is less robust. Here we have a Public Defender Association, a nonprofit group formed in 1969 primarily to educate public defense lawyers. It now has 22 officers and directors but employs no staff, leaning on the Office of the State Appellate Defender for service and program coordination. The OSAD, with five district offices, represents clients appealing criminal convictions.

Iowa came to mind because, as I type, I can hear the freight trains across the Mississippi River. Illinois’ public defender infrastructure is topical given Capitol News Illinois’ April 16 report on efforts to codify a statewide office here.

“Many public defender offices in Illinois, especially in rural areas, are in desperate need of resources to provide adequate defense services,” Ben Szalinski reported. “A 2021 report commissioned by the Illinois Supreme Court examined nine counties of varying sizes and found each one lacked necessary resources to provide defendants proper legal representation because of high caseloads, a lack of state oversight and long wait times to obtain a lawyer. A task force created after that report recommended Illinois fully fund public defense services and establish a statewide office that provides administrative oversight and resources.”

It will come as little surprise that the recommendations of that task force still seek legislative momentum, compounded by the implications of the 2023 Pretrial Fairness Act, which requires more attorney involvement in the 72 hours after an arrest to adequately represent clients seeking to avoid being jailed while awaiting prosecution.

That issue was a foreseeable consequence of criminal justice reform, but providing legal defense to people unable to afford an attorney has been a known obligation since 1963, when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Gideon v. Wainwright. That unanimous decision reconsidered a 1942 opinion, Betts v. Brady, and expanded Sixth Amendment protections to anyone accused of any crime, “a fundamental right essential to a fair trial,” according to uscourts.gov.

In Gideon, Justice Hugo Black described the “noble ideal [of] fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law.”

Illinois enshrined that idea into state law, but underfunding and understaffing force the question of whether we meet our obligations.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at [email protected].