Layoffs due for public defenders.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

Lawyers in the nonprofit criminal defense firm that represents Lane County's poor people are getting a three-week layoff in June because of continuing budget cuts by the state.

The layoff caps a 20 percent pay cut and a month of unpaid leave already forced on the 26 lawyers who make up the Public Defender Services of Lane County since state budget cuts began March 1.

The pay cuts and uncertainty over future funding could cause lawyers to flee the relatively low-paying public defender jobs for more secure employment - and leave taxpayers with higher costs in the future if more cases with low-income defendants must be handled on an hourly basis by private lawyers. A private lawyer is paid $40 per hour to represent a low-income defendant. Public Defender Services lawyers are paid $40,000 to $60,000 annually to handle hundreds of cases.

The furlough in Lane County, which begins June 9, means at least 79 scheduled criminal trials must be postponed. The lack of legal representation also increases pressure on prosecutors and court officials to cut deals with low-level defendants so resources can be focused on more weighty cases.

"This is serious," said presiding Lane County Circuit Judge Mary Ann Bearden. "The public defender service is a vital part of the criminal justice system. Everybody has a vested interest in it. Our budget situation is so serious it threatens the life of this office."

Public defenders statewide are being hit with varying levels of cuts, depending on the types of cases they handle, said Ann Christian, director of indigent defense services for the state.

Three of the state's 84 indigent defense contractors have gone out of business, she said. Others have been paring services and laying off staff since early in the year.

"We're going to save this office, I hope," said Bill Honsowetz, a Eugene lawyer and chairman of the public defenders' board of directors.

Before Oregon's fiscal crisis began, the service handled the criminal cases of about 70 percent of low-income defendants charged in Lane County. In return, the office got a monthly payment of about $286,000. State officials reduced the monthly payment to $82,000 in May and cut it to $42,000 for June, Honsowetz said.

The office will remain open with volunteers filling five positions to process ongoing paperwork, he said.

"Our only hope is that the Legislature is going to wake up. Oregon will be a third-world country without a justice system," Honsowetz said. "Lost in all this is the fact the judicial system is supposed to be a co-equal branch of government. They aren't when the Legislature can do by budgeting what they can't do by law."

Since March 1, budget cuts have forced courts to delay appointing lawyers for poor people charged with a wide range of misdemeanor and minor felony crimes such as identity theft, car theft, drug possession, shoplifting, forgery and probation violations.

A backlog of hundreds of such cases is building in Lane County, with no assurance from the Legislature that funding will be adequate to handle the logjam when the next budget year begins in July. Statewide, court officials have estimated that the backlog could reach 28,000 cases.

"It's true we are putting a lot of the problems off into the future," Bearden said. "It's a natural disaster, is how I look at it; we have to figure out week by week how to handle it."

Bearden said judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers are cooperating to reach out-of-court settlements in criminal cases whenever possible to lessen the cost and backlog.

Officials will conduct a second round of bargain-basement plea negotiations with defendants on June 5.

In the first such event on March 1, 300 defendants were offered deals and more than 100 accepted.

During the public defense lawyers' layoff in June, private criminal defense lawyers must be appointed to represent suspects arrested for major crimes, which will cost taxpayers more than if the cases were handled by public defenders working under contract with the state, Lane County District Attorney Doug Harcleroad said.

The public defenders' layoff is unprecedented and is "part of the continuing disaster" in state budget cutting for defense lawyers, Harcleroad said.

"It's just foolish to think we're going to save money when it's going to cost us more to deal with these cases later," he said.