Colorado is in dire need of public defenders, according to research backed by the American Bar Association. Data show the state needs to triple its number of court-retained defense attorneys to keep up with demand while upholding workload standards.
Michael Booth with The Colorado Sun joined us to talk about the study and what it means for Colorado.
Booth said while public defenders had strenuous schedules as it was, the latest report shows the workload is getting even heavier.
“They used to talk about work weeks at about 47 hours, which is obviously high enough,” Booth said. “But now studies are showing that Colorado's public defenders are working 60-to-80 hour work weeks, just to keep up.”
Some might ask what has changed to make so much more work. Booth says we can partially blame technology for that. Public defenders today spend hours reviewing police body cam footage, text messages and social media posts. There are also new courtrooms that need staff as the state’s legal system tries to catch up with recent population growth.
“The population growth means that there are just more cases for people,” Booth told KUNC. “There are incompetency and competency hearings for people with psychiatric problems that are taking up huge amounts of time. You think about the shootings that have happened in Colorado and sometimes it takes years of analysis of that person's personality and mental health before they decide if they're even competent to stand trial. And in Colorado, public defenders are handling 80% of serious criminal cases.”
In light of these issues, the state public defender's office is making some big asks for the next budget year.
“What they're asking for is kind of a minimum, even though it was ‘shocking,’ as one Joint Budget Committee member put it on Capitol Hill,” Booth said. “They said it was a breathtaking request for a $14.7 million budget increase for the next year to put in 130 new attorneys and support staff — paralegals, other support that they need. And that's really just a drop in the bucket for what the actual need might be.”
Get top headlines and KUNC reporting directly to your mailbox each week when you subscribe to In The NoCo.
The study says Colorado truly needs more than 700 new hires to keep up with cases at an acceptable level. But the public defender's office is asking for 230.
State government is the sole funding source for hiring public defenders in Colorado, as opposed to district attorneys, who receive a combination of state and local funds.
“A lot of legislators at this point, when they are faced with an expensive request that is obviously a legitimate request and shows a real need, they want to wait until there's a March revenue forecast update and see if there are going to be these big chunks of money available for some programs that even progressives think are very important, but might not be able to be funded.”
