Elisabeth Pollock, chief public defender in Champaign County, Ill., oversees fourteen attorneys who collectively manage up to 200 cases each. “We’re constantly living in a state of triage,” Pollock said. “The quality of work is excellent” — but there simply aren’t enough workers. “Client frustration is really high, because [defendants] want to be able to access us freely and sometimes it’s simply not physically possible.” It’s not just Champaign County. Public defenders across the state face similar workloads. More than half are without a public defender’s office altogether, according to Courthouse News Servoce. Research from the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law estimates a shortfall of nearly 900 public defenders statewide. A 2021 report from the Sixth Amendment Center found that Illinois' public defense system is inconsistent, lacks adequate resources, and does not meet the state’s constitutional obligations.
Illinois isn’t the only state facing such a shortage. From Washington State to Texas, critics say an inadequate supply of defenders undermines defendants' rights to fair representation and speedy proceedings.
Without enough defenders, “people in various counties are not getting access to their constitutional right to an attorney in the same way,” said Briana Payton of the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts. In Illinois this year, concerns like these prompted at least two bills addressing the shortfall. One was withdrawn for lack of support, while the other failed to pass before the state legislative session ended on Friday. Known as the Funded Advocacy and Independent Representation (FAIR) Act, the bill would have created a statewide public defender office as well as an 11-member oversight commission. After making it to the House Rules Committee on May 14, the FAIR Act did not see a vote on the House floor. For now, Illinois public defenders who say they need more resources will have to keep waiting.
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