Our time.
That's a quote from the Wisconsin
State Public Defender after the
State Senate adjourned without
taking up a bill to fund 52
new positions, including 18
additional attorneys.
The agency says a staff shortage
leaves defendants waiting for
representation and a backlog
of cases in the courts.
Here to talk about it, Deputy State
Public defender Bridget Krause,
and thanks very much for being here.
Morning, thanks for having me.
So how has the shortage of support
staff and attorneys grown?
Um, it's grown tremendously over
the last few years, especially since
the pandemic, not only have we
been, um, short with the number of
private bar lawyers that are taking
cases in the state of Wisconsin.
We've also had an increase
in the number of cases coming in,
but we have not had an increase in
number of public defenders.
Our public defender support staff
added to the SPD.
So it has been growth over
a number of years and I think after
the pandemic, we finally saw how
it was affecting both the legal
system as well as the attorneys
and the clients that are represented
by the public defender's office.
What are the consequences of
not having enough people to timely
defend everyone who needs
it?
People wait in custody longer,
right? Cases go longer without
having a lawyer.
So we have had clients sitting in
custody prior to a preliminary
hearing, which they're entitled to
have within 10 days.
If they're in custody, 20 days if
they're out of custody and they're
sitting there without a lawyer
because there's no lawyer to take
their case.
You also have cases in the system
longer, right?
So cases that might have...
Resolved 6 months to
9 months pre-pandemic.
Now we're waiting longer to resolve
or longer to even get an attorney.
So there's a lot of delay in
both getting a client, a
lawyer, and there's a lot delay in
resolving a case, which
could have an impact on both
the system as well as the
individuals who, you
know, the complaining witnesses in a
case. The people that have on to the
police for help.
It delays.
For them also.
What are the frustrations like
inside the courtroom,
inside the criminal justice system?
I think the judges are frustrated,
right? They're frustrated because
there's no lawyer sitting with the
client at very important
stages, including a preliminary
hearing, as
the case moves forward, right, it's
hard to get a lawyer to sit with
that client if there's no lawyers
available.
There's a lot of frustration by
public defenders.
Honestly, we want to represent our
clients. We don't want people
sitting in custody without a lawyer,
right. We want people sitting there
that could be innocent of the crimes
that they've been accused of because
they don't have a lawyer to
represent them.
I think it's frustrating for
prosecutors too, honestly, because
they've charged specific cases and
someone doesn't have a lawyer,
therefore that case cannot move
forward. So I think there's a lot of
frustration in the system.
It's probably frustrating also,
honestly for the sheriff's
office that run the jails, because
if you can't get a lawyer for a
client, that client might sit in
custody and then you have more
people in custody than should be in
custody and the jail can't handle
it.
The state did authorize new
prosecutor positions.
How does that exacerbate case
delays?
I mean, there's only so
many lawyers to take the cases that
are coming in. And when you add
prosecutors, you add the number of
cases coming into the system.
So if you're adding prosecutors on
one side, they're reviewing charges,
they're charging cases, but if you
don't have the lawyers on the other
side to represent those clients,
it just bottlenecks the system, so
any progress that we make.
In bringing in new lawyers, new
private bar lawyers to take the
cases, any progress we make in
filling vacancies in the state
public defenders really
go nowhere because of
the increase in the
number of cases coming into the
system. So you spoke to private
bar attorneys who can be appointed
and are they
at all helping to offset this
shortage?
I think they're helping as much as
they can, right?
They also only have so
much bandwidth, so they can also
only take so many cases.
We have some really great private
bar partners who take cases
for us, right, and they've taken
cases for years, but
at some point they're also saturated
with representing clients, and it's
not just a warm body next to
a client, right.
A client has a right.
To effective ethical
representation and if you have too
many cases you can't provide that to
a client so I think our private bar
partners are working really hard to
help us but again you
only have so many lawyers and if
your continue to bring the cases in
you just don't have enough lawyers
to handle those cases.
Your agency calls this an
unfunded mandate.
What's the mandate?
I think the mandate is
You know, Gideon, the anniversary
of Gideons was just this past
Wednesday.
And in GideON, the U.S.
Supreme Court said that clients have
a constitutional right to
have a lawyer represent them.
That's the mandate.
When you don't have lawyers checking
the prosecution,
checking the police department,
it... Causes a tremendous
it causes an effect across
the state across our counties
across our cities because people
are unchecked and they're
able to prosecute people or
charge people with very serious
cases and if you don't have a lawyer
sitting next to that client it
affects the entire community
so we have an obligation
an obligation in our state
to provide lawyers for
people that are charged with crimes.
There is a
constitutional protectant those
clients have to be proving guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt.
But you need a lawyer sitting next
to that client, providing that
defense, reviewing that
discovery, providing advice to
clients, and fighting in court if
necessary.
And when you don't have that, the
entire system fails.
We leave it there.
Thanks very much.
Thank you.
You're an effective attorney.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
I try to be.
So just one question
before I let you go and that is
what's the next step
just keep kind of advocating for
this?
We have to, like we have to keep
advocating with representatives in
our communities.
I think we have a lot of support
from judges who have come up to us
and said to us, like, what do you
need? Who should I talk to?
How can I get you more staff?
Like, how can I make sure these
things pass so that you get the
resources that you need.
And I think, we talked a lot about
lawyers, but support staff is big
for us too, because they do a lot of
the work behind the scenes that you
really need to get work done, right?
So I think we have lot of a support
in the system.
We just have to get it before
the legislator so that they will
they will like provide us resources.
Unlike the prosecutors, they get
their resources from the counties.
So they're paralegals, they're
investigators, anybody else, their
legal secretaries, their support
staff, all comes from county
funding. Ours can only come from the
state. So we really rely on
that legislation to pass so we
can get those positions
that we really need.
So that's the next step is just
continuing to talk to people,
advocating for positions that we
need in explaining why those
positions are so important.
Great, thank you.
Thank you so much.