State Sen. Mike Padden: Washington needs more public defenders and prosecutors, along with police

In passing Initiative 2113 earlier this year, legislators repealed a set of reactionary, criminal-friendly restraints on law-enforcement pursuits that had enabled a multiyear spike in vehicle thefts across our state.

While that was an important victory, much more must be done to re-establish a sense of public safety in our communities.

Washington continues to rank 51st in the nation for the ratio of law-enforcement officers to residents – a sorry statistic that is finally attracting attention outside the state Capitol because of this year’s gubernatorial election.

Then there’s the other acute but less-publicized shortage in our criminal-justice system: the lack of public defenders and prosecutors.

Spokane County, for instance, is short nine prosecutors. And this past month, the city of SeaTac’s inability to find public defenders contributed to the dismissal of charges against 46 protesters arrested in April for blocking access to Washington’s largest airport.

The reasons for the attrition and the inability to recruit in the public-defense and prosecutorial sectors are simple: too many cases and too little compensation.

The public isn’t safer when people suspected of crimes are set free because a local jurisdiction can’t find a public defender for an indigent defendant, and dismisses the case to avoid violating that defendant’s Sixth Amendment guarantee of a speedy and public trial.

Nor are our communities safer when someone pleads guilty to a lesser charge and receives a lighter penalty because a public defender is too overworked to take the case to trial.

Also, neither situation gives law-enforcement officers or victims reason to have faith in our justice system.

To address what it views as the causes of this crisis, the Washington State Bar Association has forwarded a set of revised standards for indigent-defense services to our state Supreme Court.

The changes focus on new support-staff requirements for public-defense agencies, phased-in modifications aimed at helping attorneys gain trial experience, and workload adjustments to give public defenders more preparation time.

The Supreme Court is accepting public comments on these recommendations through Oct. 31. It also will hold two public hearings on this issue, with the first hearing on Sept. 25.

The state bar’s proposals are ambitious. However, as county and city attorneys told the Senate Law and Justice Committee at a recent meeting, accommodating the new standards would require considerably more funding.

A bill filed during this year by state Sen. Nikki Torres, R-Pasco, was specifically aimed at increasing state funding for public defense. Unfortunately, SB 5773 went nowhere.

Of the six bills Torres proposed to improve our state’s public-defense infrastructure, only her Senate Bill 5780 became law. It will encourage participation in the public-defense and prosecution professions, especially in underserved areas and rural areas.

My biggest concern is that until the pressure on local public defenders is eased, we’ll see more dismissals similar to what happened in SeaTac.

A Superior Court judge for whom I have much regard has shared a more specific worry: If the Supreme Court adopts the state bar’s recommendations but counties can’t increase or adjust their budgets to support the new standards, crimes like auto theft and burglary will be a lower priority and likely go unprosecuted.

Knowing all it took to allow officers to resume pursuing and arresting suspected car thieves, that would be unthinkable.

While the Supreme Court and the state bar deserve credit for their work to address this crisis, the best solutions tend to come from getting all stakeholders together. On this issue, the list should include not only legislators, local governments, and the legal community, but also our state’s law schools. Law enforcement supports my stance on this issue.

Many new lawyers are burdened with enormous amounts of student debt. Some sort of loan-forgiveness approach could help offset the lower compensation of public-sector attorney positions.

The law schools and bar association also could collaborate to send a message I heard as a law student: The best path to becoming a top-flight (and highly paid) litigator is to get courtroom experience, which is most readily accomplished by serving as a prosecutor or a public defender.

The work of prosecutors and public defenders is essential to the fair delivery of justice. There was a time when such positions also were viewed as both honorable and rewarding. We should strive to make them so again.

Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, has served Washington’s 4th Legislative District as a lawmaker for 28 years. He is Republican leader on the Senate Law and Justice Committee and served 12 years on the Spokane County District Court bench.