DAs to lawmakers: Accused child rapist, killers, drug traffickers released from jail as cases stall with no public defenders

An Oregon man accused of repeatedly molesting and raping a child has been out of jail for more than 1 ½ years, his case unable to go forward. He faces at least 25 years in prison if found guilty, but first, he must be assigned a public defender — and a chronic shortage means neither the court nor the state has come up with one.

The same goes for two dozen other Oregon defendants accused of working together to sell a massive cache of drugs that included nine pounds of fentanyl, enough for 144,000 deadly doses. More than a year after those people were arrested and charged, the system still hasn’t been able to find public defenders for 10 of them and their case files gather dust.

Amanda Dalton, a lobbyist for the Oregon District Attorneys Association, told a subcommittee of state lawmakers Monday about these cases and others, stressing that prosecutors across the state are continuing their “urgent call for help” to address a public defender shortage that continues to careen out of control.

The district attorneys’ plea came as the state’s top court administrator, Nancy Cozine, told the lawmakers the shortage has reached unseen heights: While the number of criminal defendants held in jail without lawyers dropped by about half since mid-2023, to about 150 this week, the number of out-of-custody criminal defendants without lawyers has grown by more than 1,500, to about 3,500 this week.

“The bottomline is that the crisis has reached an all-time high,” Cozine said.

The dire situation comes 18 months after many Oregonians believed the problem had been fixed. The Oregon Legislature passed a more than $90 million plan designed to secure more defense laywers. That day, House leaders announced that they’d “fulfilled their commitment to addressing the state’s public defender shortage.”

But Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that state officials set out at a sluggish pace to create special state “strike teams” of expert defense lawyers who could step in to help cases like that of the accused child rapist proceed. Evans said he stands by the $90 million plan but faults leaders of the Oregon Public Defense Commission for failing to use all the tools the Legislature gave them m.

“I am deeply, deeply disappointed and angry that some of these tools have not been used as effectively as they could have been,” Evans said. He specifically pointed to the amount of time — roughly a year — that it took the commission to hire the strike-team of 20 state public defenders.

The commission’s leaders, however, say that rebuilding an extraordinarily complex system that has been broken for decades takes time. After years of turmoil, including ousting its former head, the commission hired a new executive director in late 2022.

The public defense commission “has come a long way,” said its chair, Jennifer Nash, in an emailed statement. “We have the right people in place to fix the system. There is no one who has been better suited to turn this agency around than its executive director, Jessica Kampfe. She has the right personality, experience and skills. She is building this plane while flying it and has done an incredible job.”

Evans, who is a non-voting member of the commission, said he stands by his statements. “At this point, I am done with excuses. I’m past done with excuses.”

Evans and multiple district attorneys told The Oregonian/OregonLive that they were heartened by an announcement this week by the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office that it will audit the performance of the Oregon Public Defense Commission, among other state agencies, in the audit period beginning in July.

“Audits help build a relationship of trust between Oregonians and their government,” Secretary of State Tobias Read said in a news release. “...The audits included in this plan target some of the areas of highest risk to taxpayers and the public.”

Kampfe, the public defense commission’s executive director, said the additional scrutiny “is not a surprise.”

“The Secretary of State let us know in 2023 that they planned to audit our agency in 2025,” Kampfe said in a statement. “We welcome the opportunity to work with them on the audit.”

Prosecutors, court officials and public defenders say the risk the public defender shortage poses to Oregonians is grave:

Prosecutors say victim and community safety is put at risk when cases stall, defendants are released from jail and sometimes, especially in Multnomah County, charges have been dismissed. Defendants, in turn, sometimes commit new, more serious crimes, they say.

Court officials also say the endless cycle wastes money, as defendants charged with felonies but who are not held in jail now wait an average of 110 days before being assigned a public defender. In the meantime, they appear for court hearings an average of five times.

“These multiple appearances while people are unrepresented is a lot of wasted productivity in the system,” Jessica Roeser of the Oregon Judicial Department told lawmakers. “Courts have to schedule the cases. People have to show up for court, pay for parking, get transportation to these appearances. Court staff are preparing orders and forms. They’re recording the hearings. And all just to be turned away because we don’t have an attorney available.”

Public defenders say the state is not fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide swift and sufficient representation to defendants who can’t afford to hire a lawyer and constitute about 85% of all defendants charged.

And, public defenders say, it wasn’t until fall 2023 that a federal judge addressed another injustice by ordering that recent arrestees be held for no more than seven days without a court-appointed lawyer. Public defenders say even when people accused of crimes are let out of jail, the weight of accusations hanging over them can tarnish reputations, take time away from jobs and family and overall disrupt their lives.

At this week’s legislative hearing, state court officials told legislators that people charged with driving under the influence of intoxicants constitute the largest group of defendants not assigned court-appointed attorneys. That’s followed by people accused of stealing cars and defendants accused of shoplifting or otherwise stealing less than $1,000 worth of property.

But Dalton, at the district attorneys association, highlighted more extreme examples. That includes a Coos County woman accused of negligently killing her 3-month-old baby who overdosed from methamphetamine. She was released from jail, and more than a year passed before she was assigned a public defender last month. By then, Dalton said, the defendant had already given birth to a new baby.

Portland-area district attorneys, too, have shared striking examples. In Washington County, a man who allegedly was intoxicated when he veered into oncoming traffic on Oregon 47 and killed a person was released from jail and went nine months without getting assigned a public defender. He subsequently skipped his next two court dates and has had a warrant out for his arrest for most of the past year.

“It’s boggling that finding a solution to this has eluded Oregon for several years now,” said Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton.

“At the end of the day, (the Oregon Public Defense Commission) is not doing its job,” Barton said. “This is a state agency responsible for making sure Oregon’s indigent defense system is working well. It’s not like there’s a shortage of money.”

In Multnomah County, newly elected District Attorney Nathan Vasquez drew the ire of public defenders in the county during his first month on the job in January. He stated that he believed the shortage was an artificial “crisis” and instead described it as a “work stoppage.”

Vasquez says figures for the county’s two public defender firms show neither are accepting the maximum number of cases that the state has said they can and instead are declining some cases due to workload concerns.

Public defense firms have fired back, saying they have experienced massive attorney turnover given pay that is too low and caseloads that are too high.

“It is beyond disappointing,” Stacey Reding, executive director at Multnomah Defenders Inc, said of Vasquez’s comments. She added: “It is well-documented there is a workforce shortage.”

Public defenders have said that high turnover rate is a consequence of bringing new people into the job who can’t take full caseloads on Day One.

Vasquez countered: “The way I view it is I’m offended they’re not taking the cases. They are taking our public dollars to provide a service that is critical and vital to our community.”

Vasquez added: “This is a crisis that has gotten worse despite getting more money. Sadly, with a lot of problems we’ve seen in the metro Oregon area, it’s ‘Hey, let’s just throw a lot of money at it and hope it gets better.’ And then it gets worse.”

— Aimee Green is covering the Oregon Legislature this session. Reach her at 503-294-5119, agreen@oregonian.com or @o_aimee.

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