Give them a raise. That’s a fix that passed Friday to fill the shortfall of public defenders in Oregon.
The Public Defense Services Commission approved a plan to pay a rate of $158 per hour for in-custody felony cases to lawyers who are not currently under contract through the end of this year. The current rate is $105. The plan is actually more complicated than even that long explanation.
The problem is this: 86 people accused of felonies in Oregon do not have attorneys as of Friday. There were another 103 that had been accused of lesser crimes with no lawyer, according to The Oregonian. And that didn’t just start Friday. It’s been going on for months and months.
It is unjust. A class-action lawsuit has been filed against the state because of the ongoing shortage of public defenders.
A partial solution brought forward by Stephen Singer, executive director of Oregon’s Office of Public Defense Services, was to boost the rate of pay. It was only to boost the rate of pay for new attorney capacity. Otherwise, public defenders under contract may switch to take a new case at the higher rate.
“We are in a hole,” Singer said at Friday’s meeting. “The quickest way to get out of a hole is to stop digging.”
Will this pay plan solve the problem of an absence of public defenders in the state? It’s not clear. It’s a temporary measure aimed at temporarily helping what will be a long-term challenge for the state. The commission and Legislature are going to need to continue to look for more permanent solutions.
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