Overloaded Public Defense Systems ‘Jeopardizing The Fairness of Our Justice System,’ Report Finds
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The ongoing overburdening of U.S. public defense systems that serve millions of people annually is jeopardizing the fairness of our justice system and can result in more and longer prison sentences, concludes a recent report published by the Washington D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute (JPI). According to the report, 73 percent of county-based public defender offices lacked the requisite number of attorneys to meet caseload standards, while 23 percent of these offices had less than half of the necessary attorneys to meet caseload standards. With an increasing overload of cases, lack of quality defense and a shortage of resources, the report argues, justice is not being served and the wellbeing of millions of people is at stake. The findings in System Overload: The Costs of Under-Resourcing Public Defense echo the perspective shared by Jonathan Rapping, associate professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School and founder and CEO of the Southern Public Defender Training Center, which trains public defenders across the southeastern United States. Rapping tells JJIE.org, “we need to make sure that we create a campaign to view juvenile defenders as part of the larger public defender community; they’re just as important as their counterparts in the adult system.