The bulky stack of papers look as if they'd slide from Lisa Chesebro's arms should she loosen her hold — even just a little. This embarrassing nightmare scenario has happened before, with the brown accordion folders full of pleadings, complaints, paper clips, letters to the court and other critical documents tumbling out of her grasp and spilling all over the Kootenai County Jail parking lot. Chesebro is one of Idaho's overloaded public defenders, someone paid with public funds to defend people who society at large would casually condemn to incarceration and second-class citizenship. It's Chesebro's constitutionally mandated job to make sure that drug users, thieves, the wrongly accused and otherwise benign people who make boneheaded decisions get their day in court. It's also a job that state officials acknowledge has been chronically neglected, and they're not sure what to do about it/Jake Thomas, Pacific Northwest Inlander. More here.