How to be a Public Defender Revolutionary, Part III

Part III: Interpreting Caseload Standards

In earlier installments (Part I and Part II), I discussed the recent ABA Ethics Opinion that gives public defenders the power and duty to refuse excessive caseloads, and why "caseload standards"  numbers are arbitrary but useful as an absolute maximum and a starting point for more in-depth caseload analysis.

Why care about  ABA opinions and policy standards that are repetitive and tedious, when they have thus far failed to reform public defense?  Because I am suggesting to you--my brother and sister public defenders--that one day many of you will reach a breaking point.  That you will realize that you have too much to do, and no matter how you learn to play the system and fight for the clients, that you can't do it all, and then you'll realize that some of your clients may be suffering and you are as well.  You may end up standing in your bedroom one weekend, trying to run through the list of upcoming trials (burglary next week, then assault 2, then back to burglary and then that bullshit stolen vehicle one and then the vehicular homicide and you know there's another one and you can't remember it) twitching.  Oh wait, that was me.

When you reach this point, your options have been traditionally pretty limited: 1) leave the job; 2) have a mental breakdown; 3) stay in the job a broken, lesser version of yourself.

Do As We Say, Not as We Do

The volume and repetition of published material regarding public-defender reform makes my head tired and spinny. It seems that every well-intentioned person or group interested in PD reform has produced a report, study, guideline, standard, compendium or e-library. So many studies and committees and opinions … and yet the evolution of public defense seems stalled, if not regressing.

In a New York Times article about public defenders in various states moving to refuse cases due to excessive caseloads, Norman Lefstein, a professor at the Indiana University School of Law — Indianapolis, and an expert on criminal justice, said, “I think the quality of public defense around the country is absolutely deteriorating. … In my opinion, there should be hundreds of such motions or lawsuits.”

When I first took the time to download the gigantic, thorough Justice Denied, the National Right to Counsel Committee's recent report on the state of public defense, I knew the publication had refreshing insight when it introduced its executive summary by stating, “In approaching these subjects, the Committee was mindful that there have been numerous studies that have cataloged the problems with indigent defense, but these reports have not had significant impact in bringing about improvements.”

Torn Between Two PDs

When PDR first read about Jeff Adachi, San Francisco's Chief Public Defender, and his handling of proposed budget cuts to his office, PDR began began writing his name in big puffy letters on her trial notebooks, dotting the "i" with a heart, and making plans to move to SF for some serious pd work. We devote our defense to you! our beaten up and toughened little heart cried.

Why did Adachi have us giggling and twirling our hair? Because this is what he told the San Francisco Board of Supervisors when he was told to cut his budget by 1.9 million.

In a nutshell, Adachi told them: If you cut my budget by 1.9 million and 23 lawyers, I will refuse to accept