Court is in session in Judge Wells Ashby’s courtroom in the Deschutes County Courthouse in Bend in 2021.

A new hurt came Tuesday to loiter with the anguish and clash with the justice at the Deschutes County Courthouse: Not enough public defenders.

Justice was delayed for five people accused of crimes and for their alleged victims. No defense attorneys were available for the defendants.

The crimes charged was a list of horrors: first degree rape, encouraging sexual abuse in the first degree, sexual abuse in the first degree and more.

Extending the cases, extends the victim’s trauma, Chief Deputy Deschutes County District Attorney Mary Anderson said. “It erodes confidence in the judicial system. And victims have a constitutional and statutory right to fair process as well, including the right to a speedy trial.”

One of the alleged victims was in the courtroom. Anderson said the delays are having a continuing financial and emotional impact “as well as having again to change work both for the victim, a witness close to the victim, and coordinating those issues with the court and having to explain why they are going to court because they were a victim of abuse.”

Tuesday’s hearing in the court of Deschutes County Presiding Judge Wells Ashby is a new type for the county.

“The chronic statewide shortages of public criminal defense counsel has become an acute problem in Deschutes County,” Ashby told us in an email. “Despite broad-based efforts to find constitutionally mandated counsel for indigent defendants, we now have defendants, both in and out of custody, who are unrepresented.”

The court added a new regular docket to review the availability of public defenders and also potential release from custody for individuals charged with crimes.

The Oregon Public Defense Commission, which has the responsibility for the state’s public defense system, was not on trial Tuesday.

It felt like it was.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Anderson was the prosecutor. Court clerk Rebecca Williams was a witness. And there was no defense.

“We have a wholesale bureaucratic failure with OPDC,” Anderson said. Case filings have declined in criminal cases across the state, she said. Felony cases are down — 881 in Deschutes County in 2023, 931 in 2022 and 1,009 in 2021. The Legislature has poured more dollars on the problem. And in Deschutes County, the problem of finding public defenders has become worse.

It seems likely to get worse. Williams, whose job is to link public defenders to defendants who need them, said the three legal teams of attorneys who do most of the public defense work in Deschutes County have marginal or shrinking ability to take on new cases. It’s, in part, the same issue that faces many Deschutes employers: the high cost of living. Though it was not mentioned explicitly, think also about the considerations of a starting attorney, weighing becoming a public defender. They may be walking into a workplace where they could overwork themselves and fail to meet the need.

“Even when they have attorneys available to hire to address the issues that we are facing, which is a fundamental constitutional right, they are not hiring them because the bureaucrats at OPDC are refusing to modify their contract terms or have any flexibility to address those issues,” Anderson said. “When we look at the cases that are on the docket today, that is criminal.”

Judge Ashby finds no fault in the local legal community for the situation its courts are in. He singled out state Rep. Jason Kropf, D-Bend, a former public defender and former deputy district attorney, for his efforts to find solutions.

“It is painful, although certainly fair to hear, the state’s comments on impacts on alleged victims and cases that have not been brought to trial,” Ashby said. “The court is aware of the stress that a pending case has on criminal defendants, as well. Time and delays really do not serve anyone well.”

Anderson suggested as one remedy that the court has the power to compel attorneys to provide defense for unrepresented defendants. Ashby said he would review the case law and arguments Anderson made.

There were no winners in the courtroom Tuesday, not for the defendants waiting in jail with no representation and not for their alleged victims.

To Gov. Tina Kotek and Oregon legislators: This is your Oregon. We know there are initiatives to increase public defender capacity. It’s not been enough. What more are you going to do?