The Number of Criminal Defendants Without an Attorney Is Still Growing

Oregon’s public defense crisis is no longer generating headlines in the national press. But while attention has waned, the problem hasn’t. In fact, in Multnomah County, it’s rapidly getting far worse.

The latest numbers distributed by the Oregon Judicial Department show a disturbing trend. The number of unrepresented defendants in Multnomah County set a new record in September and has only worsened since.

A court spokesperson blamed two recent developments: an increase in criminal case filings and people not showing up to court. Most of the total consists of out-of-custody defendants, and it’s difficult to assign those defendants an attorney when they aren’t in the courthouse to meet.

“Our staff scramble daily to find attorney appointments for the parties that must remain in custody,” said spokeswoman Rachel McCarthy. “It is extremely concerning that the problem is worsening rather than improving.”

Public defenders point to a different problem: high turnover and an influx of inexperienced recruits. The head of the beleaguered state agency in charge of the system, the Oregon Public Defense Commission, has spent over $40 million statewide in hourly pay hikes for private attorneys to help solve it.

But Grant Hartley, local director of the city’s largest public defense firm, says the increased pay is simply incentivizing existing nonprofit attorneys to enter private practice. “It is a tremendously expensive program, with little to no oversight, that is cutting into the agency’s ability to hire more contract public defenders to address this crisis in the long term,” he tells WW.

Hartley says there’s another reason for the recent spike in Multnomah County: a new policy of no longer dismissing cases when a public defender has long not been available. McCarthy, the court spokeswoman, refused to comment on the practice, noting that the Oregon Supreme Court was weighing the issue.