OREGON
A8 — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2022
Pandemic pushes public defender system to the brink
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
The Associated Press
PORTLAND — A
post-pandemic glut of
delayed cases has exposed
shocking constitutional
landmines impacting defen-
dants and crime victims
alike in Oregon, a state with
a national reputation for
progressive social justice.
An acute shortage of
public defenders means at
any given time at least sev-
eral hundred low-income
criminal defendants don’t
have legal representation,
sometimes in serious felony
cases that could put them
away for years.
Judges have dismissed
nearly four dozen cases in
in the Portland area alone
— including a domestic vio-
lence case with allegations
of strangulation — and have
threatened to hold the state
in contempt.
“We’re overwhelmed.
The pandemic is exposing
all the problems that
we have,” said Carl
Macpherson, executive
director of Metropolitan
Public Defender, a large
Portland nonprofi t public
defender fi rm. “It just
became abundantly clear
that we are broken.”
Public defenders warned
the system was on the brink
of collapse before the pan-
demic and some staged a
walkout in 2019. But law-
makers didn’t act and then
COVID-19 shut down the
courts. Now, the system is
“buckling before our eyes,”
said Kelly Simon, legal
director for the Oregon
American Civil Liberties
Union.
The crisis in Oregon,
while extreme, refl ects a
nationwide reckoning on
indigent defense, as courts
seek to absorb a pandemic
backlog of criminal cases
with public defender systems
that have long been under-
funded and understaff ed.
From New England to New
Mexico to Wisconsin, states
are struggling to keep public
defender services running.
Maine this month ear-
marked nearly $1 million
to hire that state’s fi rst fi ve
public defenders, with a
focus on rural counties,
after relying entirely on
contracts with private attor-
neys until now.
In New Mexico, a recent
report found the state was
Gillian Flaccus/The Associated Press
Carl Macpherson, executive director at Metropolitan Public Defender, in his offi ce in Portland on
Thursday, May 5, 2022, examines the fi le in a double murder case that was recently pushed back for
trial. Macpherson says his fi rm of 90 public defenders recently stopped taking certain types of new
criminal cases for a month in two local courts because they had so many cases that the attorneys
were violating their ethical obligations to clients. A post-pandemic glut of delayed cases has exposed
constitutional landmines impacting defendants and crime victims alike in Oregon, where an acute
shortage of public defenders has even led judges to dismiss serious cases.
short 600 full-time public
defenders. In New Hamp-
shire, where an estimated
800 defendants were without
attorneys, state lawmakers in
March approved more than
$2 million to raise public
defenders’ salaries. And in
Wisconsin, where starting
pay for public defenders
is $27 an hour, there’s a
shortage of 60 attorney posi-
tions statewide.
“This is America’s dirty
little secret: Thousands of
people in courtrooms all
across the country go to jail
every single day without
having talked to a lawyer,”
said Jon Mosher, deputy
director of the nonprofi t
Sixth Amendment Center.
An American Bar Asso-
ciation report released in
January found Oregon has
31% of the public defenders
it needs. Every existing
attorney would have to work
more than 26 hours each
weekday to cover the case-
load, the authors found.
“It’s horrifying. I don’t
want to mince words about
this. I am not going to make
excuses for this,” said state
Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hay-
ward, who co-chairs the
state Legislature’s Ways and
Means committee. “That
being said, we can’t manufac-
ture attorneys out of thin air.”
For victims, the situa-
tion is devastating and it’s
hurting the most vulnerable.
Cassie Trahan,
co-founder and executive
director of an Oregon non-
profi t that works with teen
and young adult victims of
sex traffi cking, said trust in
the judicial system is fading,
especially in minority and
immigrant communities.
Victims no longer want to
come forward when they
see cases being dismissed
or ending in weak plea bar-
gains to relieve pressure on
the courts.
One such victim in a
pending traffi cking case
“lives in constant fear that
it’s going to be dismissed,”
Trahan said.
Prosecutors can get an
indictment from a grand
jury when cases are dis-
missed for lack of a public
defender and police will
re-arrest the alleged per-
petrator — but that’s small
consolation to victims.
“In her mind, it’s like,
‘Now I’ve outed myself,
now I’ve talked against him
and what’s going to happen
if he gets off ?’” Trahan said
of the victim. “That’s what
we’re seeing more of, espe-
cially in communities of
color and groups that don’t
trust the judicial system
anyway.”
The Oregon Legislature
recently approved $12.8 mil-
lion in one-time funding for
the four hardest-hit coun-
ties, as well as a suite of leg-
islative reforms. New con-
tracts coming this summer
will institute lower attorney
case caps. And lawmakers
are withholding $100 mil-
lion from the agency’s
budget until it shows good
faith on numerous reforms,
including restructuring,
fi nancial audits and perfor-
mance metrics.
A working group of all
three government branches
will convene this month to
begin tackling a “compre-
hensive and structural mod-
ernization” of the system.
Autumn Shreve, govern-
ment relations manager for
the state Offi ce of Public
Defense Services, said the
pandemic fi nally forced the
hand of state lawmakers
who haven’t taken a close
look at public defenders in
nearly 20 years.
“It’s been a ragtag group
of people trying to cover the
caseloads year-to-year and
because of that there’s been
a lot of past papering over of
problems,” she said.
Meanwhile, the situation
in the state’s courtrooms is
dire.
Often those going without
attorneys are charged with
heinous crimes that come
with hefty prison sentences
if convicted, making it
even harder to fi nd public
defenders qualifi ed to handle
such complex cases. And
those who handle misde-
meanors are often young
attorneys carrying 100 cases
or more at a time.
“You can’t keep every-
thing in your head when
you have that many cli-
ents at the same time. Even
things like, you know,
‘What’s your current plea
off er?’ I can’t remember that
for 100 people. Or I can’t
remember, ‘What exactly
does the police report say?’
said Drew Flood, a public
defender at Metropolitan
Public Defender.
“This is the scariest thing
they have going on in their
life,” he said.
Other public defender
services, including pri-
vate investigators and legal
advisers, have also reached
a breaking point.
Renardo Mitchell, who is
jailed on attempted murder
charges, chose to repre-
sent himself after he said he
didn’t hear from his public
defender for fi ve months.
The legal adviser assigned
by the court to help him hire
expert witnesses and fi le
motions died suddenly in
February and Mitchell has
been without legal counsel
since then.
Two years after his
arrest, he still hasn’t seen
all the discovery in his
case, said Mitchell, 37. His
public private investigator
— Mitchell’s only connec-
tion to his proceedings —
recently had to petition the
court to get more paid hours
developing evidence for his
defense.
“We’re all innocent until
proven guilty. Nothing has
been proven yet — I haven’t
been found guilty,” said
Mitchell, who faces more
than 22 years in prison if
convicted. “Even if I did
those things that they allege,
I still have a right to due
process of law. “
The chief prosecutor in
Portland has become an out-
spoken advocate of public
defender reform for that
very reason.
“The most important
thing is everybody has a
right to an attorney, it’s a
constitutional right,” said
Multnomah County District
Attorney Michael Schmidt.
“It’s an ecosystem, like a
coral reef. If you take away
one aspect of this system,
then all the other aspects
fall apart.”
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T HE O BSERVER
With federal investment, 7 highways
to get charging stations every 50 miles
By ALEX BAUMHARDT
Oregon Capital Chronicle
SALEM — An elec-
tric vehicle charging station
could soon exist every 50
miles on some of Oregon’s
main highways.
The Oregon Depart-
ment of Transportation
announced Friday, May 6,
it would direct $100 mil-
lion over the next fi ve years
to growing a network of
charging stations for cars,
trucks and SUVs. Some
will charge even medi-
um-duty vehicles such as
delivery vans. Electric vehi-
cles built before 2016 have
an average range of 100
miles on a single charge
and today get an average of
about 250 miles, according
to the Plug-in Hybrid &
Electric Vehicle Research
Center at the University of
California, Davis.
The state transportation
department itself won’t be
in charge of installing or
operating the stations, but
will contract with private
companies to build them,
according to a press release.
The money comes from
a mix of federal and state
funds, but the bulk of it
comes from the 2021 fed-
eral infrastructure bill.
Of the $100 million,
about two-thirds will go to
building charging stations
every 50 miles on seven
major corridors. Those
include Interstates 5, 84 and
82, U.S. Highway 26, U.S.
Highway 101, U.S. Highway
20, and U.S. Highway 97.
Each charging station will
have at least four ports, and
be built so that more can be
added over time.
There aren’t yet esti-
mates for how stations will
be built because costs vary
depending on the type of
charger and where they
are installed, according
to Matt Noble, a public
aff airs specialist at the
Oregon Department of
Transportation.
“We’re confi dent that
this $100 million invest-
ment will be able to build
a backbone network every
50 miles across the seven
corridors,” he wrote in an
email.
About $36 million will
go to building out charging
infrastructure in rural
areas and cities, especially
at apartment complexes.
Noble said the department
will meet with stakeholder
groups during the next two
years to fi gure out what
needs are and where the sta-
tions would be best located
in rural and urban areas.
ODOT set a goal in 2021
of tripling the number of
electric vehicles in Oregon
by the end of 2023, and of
expanding the statewide
electric vehicle charging
network in the state 10%
by 2025. There are cur-
rently about 2,100 electric
vehicle charging stations
in Oregon, according to
the Oregon Department of
Energy.
The transportation
department will be going
after billions of dollars in
federal grants for additional
charging infrastructure
that will work for heavy-
duty electric vehicles such
as commercial trucks and
buses, according to the
ODOT press release.
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