BEND, OR -- Oregon’s public defender crisis now stretches into Bend. "What’s happening now is really a failure of government to perform one of its essential Constitutional duties," says Deschutes County District Attorney Steve Gunnels, "Which is to appoint attorneys for people who are charged with crimes, who can’t afford to hire an attorney."
Multnomah County's D.A. has said for several years he's forced to release Portland-area inmates every month, due to a lack of available representation. Deschutes County D.A. Gunnels tells KBND News, "Over the past couple of years, literally hundreds of people around the state have gone without an attorney after they’ve been charged with a crime. That finally hit in Deschutes County." Without an appointed attorney, Gunnels says defendants must be released after seven days in custody. As of Friday, he says 64 Deschutes County defendants have been released, "Many of those cases are extremely serious cases: child abuse cases, serious person-to-person crime cases." He notes Murder is in a different category and not subject to the same stipulation.
Gunnels blames the Oregon Public Defense Commission (OPDC), which imposed new maximum caseloads last year. "It effectively means that at the end of every month, if the attorney or the firm has had a certain number of cases assigned to them, they can’t take any more." There’s also a yearly limit, which many firms are now hitting. "We believe that at the beginning of July, which is the beginning of the new contract year or fiscal year, there will be a reset of yearly caseloads. That will help," says Gunnels. "But, in the meantime, we’re going to have dozens more individuals released from jail, who should be held in jail."
He says the Governor and Legislature are working to address the problem, but believes the OPDC needs to change what Gunnels calls artificial limitations, "That’s not how the criminal justice system works. We don’t get to work with criminals and say, ‘you’re going to have to hold off on committing crimes until the new year, when there can be an attorney for you.’ People commit crimes, the system needs to respond to that. It’s a public safety issue."
