PORTLAND, Ore. — District attorneys in Oregon are once again sounding the alarm over the state’s critical shortage of court-provided attorneys for low-income defendants. The lack of public defenders has strained the criminal justice system and left more than 700 people statewide without legal representation.
Judges in Multnomah County, which is home to Portland, have dismissed nearly 300 cases this year due to a lack of defense attorneys able to handle cases. The county’s top prosecutor, Mike Schmidt, said that the shortage poses “ an urgent threat to public safety ” and released a tally this week of dismissed cases. He pledged to release new numbers each week to draw attention to the crisis.
More than two-thirds of the dismissed cases are felonies; in 53% of them, property crime was the primary charge. The next most common primary charge was for weapon crimes, which accounted for 16% of dismissed felonies, while person crimes, which include assault and robbery, accounted for 12%.
“Months into this crisis, many are still waiting for their day in court while others have seen their cases dismissed altogether,” said Schmidt, a progressive prosecutor who was elected in 2020 on a platform of criminal justice reforms. “This sends a message to crime victims in our community that justice is unavailable and their harm will go unaddressed. It also sends a message to individuals who have committed a crime that there is no accountability while burning through scarce police and prosecutor resources.”
The statement reflects an increasingly popular tactic used by prosecutors in Oregon. Powerless to fix the problem on their own, they have tried to force the state’s hand. Earlier this month, Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton said that his office would seek a court order requiring the state’s public defense agency to appoint its own staff attorneys to represent defendants if no other attorneys were available.
The head of Oregon’s public defenders’ office said that she would work with Schmidt “to address this systemic access to justice emergency.”
“Public defense is a critical component of the public safety system,” Jessica Kampfe, executive director of the Office of Public Defense Services, said in an email, adding that “public defenders need significant investments to retain existing staffing levels and increase capacity.”
As of Wednesday, statewide there were 763 low-income defendants who lack legal…
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