Are California’s Public Defender’s Offices too Overwhelmed to Provide Adequate Legal Representation?

The reality is that due to current economic times the public defenders offices are overflowing with cases. Only a very small percentage of those accused can afford to retain a lawyer. The public defenders caseloads have gone through the roof in most counties over the last few years. To compound the problem, most public defenders offices have not been able to hire new public defenders due to budgetary problems.

Many public defenders have retired or left the office. All of this amounts to fewer public defenders available to represent a much higher number of clients.

When you or a loved one is facing a serious felony where significant jail time is a real possibility it is very reasonable to expect your lawyer to meet with you to discuss your case several times. The lawyer should be expected to provide you with a copy of the police report and then ask for your response to it. Your lawyer should spend time discussing your legal defenses, what witnesses you may have to call at your trial and also possible plea bargains that may be available. This should not be done when the public defender is trying to convey an offer to you in a crowded jail cell when he also has scores of other cases to handle the same morning. However, this is the type of justice that is occurring in most every courthouse in California.

In our office we receive many calls every month where clients are calling after they have plead guilty and telling us that they had the public defender and that they plead guilty without ever meeting with the public defender to review the police report. Most of the defendants were never provided with a copy of their police report to review. Most of these defendants are in custody and they only get to spend a few moments with the public defender and are told they have received “a good offer” and so they take the offer. They are often told if they do not accept the offer they could be facing many years in prison.

Given the recent Supreme Court ruling that allows a defendant to withdraw a plea after being sentenced if that defendant was deemed to have inadequate counsel prior to agreeing to a plea deal, the cost of not addressing this problem seems to far outweigh the costs of investing in a solution.

What is going on is grossly unfair to each person who finds themselves in this situation. It is unfair to their family. It is also unfair to our system of justice. People who do not retain an experienced private criminal defense law firm, in many cases are being denied proper legal representation. This is resulting in many innocent persons going to prison or jail for lengthy periods of times. This is resulting in accused persons making decisions without adequate investigation having been done on their cases.

Something has to be done. Private criminal defense law firms are doing their best to offer payment options to many clients who want to be represented by lawyers who have adequate time to prepare a defense in their case. However, far too many defendants are being told they must accept the representation from the public defenders office at a time when many public defenders are just overwhelmed with far too many clients to be able to handle the cases competently. Public defenders for the most part are hard working lawyers who want to do the best for their clients. However, there are only so many work hours in a day. If you are being asked to represent 20, 30 or even 50 clients in one day, and all of them have criminal cases, with police reports involved and many with investigation that has to be done, it is an almost impossible task.

We are not certain what the solution to this serious problem is. We will continue to do all we can to work with clients who need payments to be able to retain our law firm. We know other private criminal defense law firms are doing so as well. However, this will not resolve the problem. Please contact us if you have a similar story as the one outlined above by many who call us.

We would appreciate your input as to any possible solutions that you see that could help solve this very serious problem.