SEATTLE — Public defense leaders and legal experts warned at the annual Defender Initiative Conference last Friday that Washington faces a growing constitutional and public safety crisis unless the state significantly increases funding for indigent criminal defense, according to the Seattle Times.
In 2025, Washington increased its annual grant for public defense services from $5.3 million to $13.6 million. These funds are not distributed evenly among the state’s counties, and while smaller counties are less likely to benefit from the grant, they still pay an overwhelming share of the cost to “fund trial-level indigent defense services,” according to The Chronicle.
Toby Marshall, a founding member of Terrell Marshall Law Group, said cities and counties pay more than $220 million — about 94% — of the costs for indigent trial-level cases, while the state provides only 6% of those costs, The Chronicle reported.
Regardless of their financial status, defendants have the right to legal representation under the U.S. Constitution. Without adequate funding, public defense experts fear accused individuals will not receive effective representation or that their cases could be dismissed without due process, according to the Seattle Times.
“Any person facing criminal charges has a constitutional right to a lawyer, and that lawyer must provide effective, ethical, quality representation, and this takes time,” Marshall said, according to the Seattle Times. “If a lawyer has too many cases, the lawyer cannot do a good job on any of them.”
Along with funding concerns, public defenders are also warning about burnout. To address the issue, the Washington Supreme Court adopted a new standard in 2025 that reduced the recommended annual caseload for public defenders.
Rather than handling 150 felony cases or 400 misdemeanor cases each year, the new standard limits attorneys to 47 felony cases or 120 misdemeanor cases annually, the Seattle Times reported.
Public defenders have hoped the change will encourage more law students to pursue careers in public defense, but they say burnout will continue without sufficient funding.
Yakima County has experienced a shortage of public defenders since 2022, when defendants waited up to a month to be assigned counsel, let alone begin the legal process, according to the Yakima Herald.
The situation worsened in 2023, when defendants had to wait six to seven weeks for legal representation.
“Our community is going unserved, whether you’re involved as a defendant or a victim in the criminal legal system, or you’re somebody who needs family law services, immigration services, business services, this lawyer shortage is affecting all of us,” said Bree Black Horse, director of the Law School Admission Council Pre-Law Undergraduate Scholars Program at Heritage University and an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, in 2023, according to KUOW.
Because of the extended wait times, which also violated defendants’ right to a speedy trial, the American Civil Liberties Union sued Yakima County for “failing to appoint attorneys to indigent people charged with crimes,” alleging the county also “failed to take meaningful action to address the shortage [of public defenders],” the ACLU wrote in an Oct. 1, 2024, news release.
“This is about fairness — everyone deserves and has a right to an attorney, and that’s not happening now for defendants in Yakima County,” said David Montes, staff attorney for the ACLU of Washington, according to the October 2024 news release. “They don’t have an opportunity to ask to be released. They don’t have an opportunity for an attorney to move their case forward. We have protections in place to ensure there isn’t government abuse of power and that people are treated fairly, and right now, those protections don’t exist for a whole class of people in Yakima County.”
Yet the Washington Supreme Court declined to review a 2025 appeals court ruling that found “Washington counties have legal standing to sue the state for more public defense funding,” the Seattle Times reported.
While no decision has been made regarding the latest request for additional state funding, public defenders, prosecutors and other members of the legal community continue to urge state officials to take further action to address the growing crisis.
“We’re all part of the criminal justice system, and the system needs to be protected — not just public defenders,” Yakima County Prosecutor Joe Brusic said, according to the Seattle Times. “Without those attorneys, and without attorneys applying for those respective positions, it’s very hard to prosecute and it’s very hard to provide public defense.”
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