‘Letting the public down:’ Deschutes DA warns of ‘severe public safety risk’ due to worsening public defender shortage

(Update: adding comment from DA office, Deschutes Defenders)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- We talked last fall with Deschutes County District Attorney Steve Gunnels about the local impacts of a statewide shortage of enough public defenders.

At that time, the crisis being seen in the Portland area's criminal cases had not reached quite that level here.

"It hasn't reached the point where I would call it a crisis," Gunnels told us then. "But, you know, we're always pretty close to the edge of that."

Since then, despite efforts at the state level to address the issue - it's gotten worse.

On Friday, Gunnels told us the lack of enough public defenders in the county now poses a "severe public safety risk."

At a court hearing earlier this week for five criminal defendants facing serious crimes, the unavailability of defense representation meant delayed justice for them, as well as their victims, due to having no available defense attorneys at the time.

The issues impact defendants who are without representation, both in and out of custody.

"We need to be loud about it and we need to say this isn't right. This is government letting the public down and creating a severe public safety risk," says District Attorney Steve Gunnels.

Gunnels tells NewsChannel 21 that a handful of criminal defendants have already been released to the public due to the shortage of public defenders.

"The court will order no contact with the victim and and similar orders to try to protect the community. but the person will be released from jail to go into the community," says Gunnels.

Despite the shortage of public defenders, Gunnels says the ones that do serve Deschutes County are willing to take on more cases, but are held up by the state.

"They believe that they can do it competently. I agree with them, but the Oregon Public Defense Commission has denied them the ability to take on those extra cases" said Gunnels.

Oregon Public Defense Commission sets limits of the amount of cases a public defender can take every year. 

According to DA Gunnels, Deschutes County public defense firms have hit their maximum number of major felony cases. For a full time public defender, the maximum major felony cases for the year is 138 cases.

"There's an ethical limit to the number of cases you can take. It's not ethical to take more cases. you have to do your job. All that's saying is do your job and do it ethically. So it's not a problem," says Executive Director Joel Wirtz.

Wirtz is the executive director of Deshcutes Defenders, he says the issue lies as a criminal justice problem not a public defender problem.

He says, "Oregon is last in the nation in mental health and drug treatment. So now, because we have the criminal justice system take the problems instead of us dealing with them through more housing, more and better health care, and better drug treatment. Here we are."

He also argues part of the reason for the shortage is the lack of affordable housing in Bend.

"Here in bend. It's hard to recruit. People come here because the cost of housing is high, so we need to do everything we can to have middle class housing available in terms of we need to hire a lot more younger attorneys," says Wirtz.

If a criminal defendant is not appointed a public defender, then the case cannot move forward 

Gunnels tells NewsChannel 21 this denies criminal justice to the victims of the crime as well as defendants.

Wirtz agrees and says, "everybody is impacted by this issue."

"Criminal defendants who are in custody have a constitutional right to have an attorney appointed for them. If there's none available, then they cannot proceed in the criminal justice system," says Gunnels.

In June 2023, lawmakers addressed this issue by funding over 90 million dollars to the Oregon Public Defense Commission through Senate Bill 337. According to Gunnels, the commission needs to be more flexible in their standards now that defenders have reached their limit

"Every other entity other than the Oregon Public Defense Commission has made great efforts to try to see that we have enough public defenders available to take on the serious cases."

The DA is hoping for changes at the state level in the next few months, but doesn't expect much change in the new future. His office's stance is that if public defenders say they're capable of taking on more cases, they should be allowed to by the commission.