When I was a prosecutor in Brooklyn, the Legal Aid Society and the Brooklyn Defender Service were my opposing counsel. As a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in D.C., the D.C. Public Defender’s Office was our adversary. All of these offices had stellar attorneys and appeared to have adequate funding and resources. Their goal was to provide effective assistance of counsel to their clients. They truly fought for their clients.

But that’s not the case nationally.

The January 31, 2019 article entitled, “One Lawyer, 194 Felony Cases, and No Time,” the authors reveal that most public defender offices are outlandishly overworked with far too many cases, understaffed and underfunded. In Missouri, Rhode Island, Colorado many public defenders have an average of two to three times the workload they should in order to provide effective assistance of counsel. In Louisiana, it’s even worse; it’s 5 times the workload. The article revealed that at court appearances it was not uncommon for clients to have less than 5 minutes to consult with their counsel.

We can do better. And data is the solution.

The National Association of Public Defense is combating this problem. They are conducting caseload data studies to compare the actual time public defenders use to prepare their caseload and the time recommended to provide effective assistance of counsel.

This effort must be expanded nationally. Foundations should fund more defense-oriented nonprofits (the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Louisiana Public Defender Board, National Institute of Justice, ACLU) to conduct this study in more states. The results of the studies could be used to prevent judges from assigning too many cases to public defenders. It would also be used as evidence in support of lawsuits seeking additional funding from counties and states for expanded budgets for these offices.

It’s time to reject inadequate assistance of counsel.

See it on LinkedIn first.