A Skagit County Class action lawsuit claims that Public Defenders are too busy to do their job. When the defense attorneys are not doing there job the adversarial system fails.
To say that Richard Sybrandy is busy is an understatement. Every year he deals with up to 1,000 misdemeanor cases. The state bar says that this is double the caseload that is considered reasonable. To make matters worse, Sybrandy also runs his own private practice.
An unusual class action lawsuit has been filed in Skagit County that contends that Mount Vernon and Burlington are in violation of a defendant’s constitutional right to counsel by providing inadequate legal defense, reports the Seattle Times.
If successful, this lawsuit could have an impact for the state’s already overloaded municipal and district courts. It would force cities to spend more money on public defense, when they can ill afford to do so.
While Sybrandy agrees that he has been frustrated, and at times handling up to 5 trials a week. However, he maintains that cases are properly investigated and phone calls are returned.
The question then becomes, what is considered a reasonable caseload and who will pay the bill? The value of a good defense for someone accused of doing something horrible isn’t high for anyone, except the person charged. Politicians don’t get re-elected claiming good defenses for the accused.
The State Bar recommends that public defenders handle no more than 400 cases per year. This however, is only a recommendation. In June the State Bar did not set limits for misdemeanor caseloads when it asked the Supreme Ct. to set limits for public defense. Seattle attorney Marc Boman, who led the Bar Association effort said that cities objected because of the financial impact that caseload limits would cause. The bar will be revisiting the issue in the future in terms of misdemeanor cases.
Inadequate representation can not only be a problem for defendants during trial; it can also result in cases being overturned later. Last year, a 12 year old from Moses Lake was allowed to withdraw a guilty plea in a child molestation case due to the public defender doing what was considered a substandard job. The court cited one of the factors at play were “statistically impossible caseloads on public defenders.”.
Seattle attorney Andrew Cooley, representing Mount Vernon and Burlington in the lawsuit, contends that caseloads in municipal court do not take into account smaller, quicker matters such as suspended license infractions. He fears that if this approach works in Mount Vernon and Burlington, it could be repeated in the state’s high volume courts.
In the lawsuit, Toby Marshall, whose firm filed the suit, said that based on the volume of cases, Mount Vernon and Burlington should have 5 lawyers and spend $300,000 on public defense. Currently they have two lawyers and spend 180,000.