>> Reporting from Madison. I'm Zac Schultz for "Here&
Now". >> Our attorneys are
drowning. 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. >> Good morning. Thanks for
having me. >> So how has the shortage
of support staff and attorneys grown?
>> It's grown tremendously over the last few years,
especially since the pandemic. Not only have we
been 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 the number of
public defenders or public defender's 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 waiting 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 ten 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 66 months to nine months pre-pandemic now are
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 of 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 gone to the police for help, it
delays the case 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 don't 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 have 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 jails can't handle
it. 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 defender's 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 us for years. But at some
point they are 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 you continue to bring the cases in, you just
don't have enough lawyers to handle those cases.
>> Now, your agency calls this an unfunded mandate.
What's the mandate? >> I think the mandate is,
you know, Gideon, the anniversary of Gideon was
just this past Wednesday. And Gideon, the US 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 there is a constitutional protecting.
Those clients have to be proven guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt. But you need a lawyer sitting next
to that client providing that defense, reviewing
that discovery, providing that advice to clients and
fighting in court if necessary. And when you
don't have that, the entire system fails.