Five people were held in custody in Deschutes County as of Wednesday charged with felonies without a lawyer to represent them.

Their alleged victims will need to wait for justice. The defendants may not understand their rights or what is going on. And a basic constitutional right is not being met by the state of Oregon.

It looks like this problem is going to get worse in Deschutes County. Take a look at our recent editorial here: tinyurl.com/DefendersDeschutes.

Oregonians should not have to accept this is how it will be. We went looking for what the Oregon Public Defense Commission, the body charged with providing attorneys for those that can’t afford them, is doing.

The commission has two proposals that may go before the Legislature’s emergency board later this month. One is to pay attorneys more. A second is to increase staffing at the commission so it can better analyze what it is doing and better monitor its contracting.

The commission authorized a program in 2022 that started paying attorneys more if they would be willing to provide public defense for the state. The program shifted the hourly rate from $75/hour to $158/hour.

The program has changed over time — expanded and contracted what it would cover. The purpose was consistent: get more attorneys interested in doing public defense work or doing more of it.

The “Temporary Hourly Increased Rate Program” has cost the state over $20 million as of April 9. Most of that has gone to attorney fees – about $13.7 million. Other costs include costs for investigators and trial expenses. A total of 164 attorneys have participated with 103 of them not having contracts with the state to do public defense work. The program is currently only funded through June 24.

Commissioners discussed some of the concerns about the program, during an April meeting. For instance, some attorneys wanting long-term security as a state-contracted public defender have been instructed to instead participate in this hourly program. That arguably means the state ends up paying more for the same legal services and the attorney has less long-term job security as a public defender.

Legislators should probe that issue for a fix.

The second policy option for legislators is to fill some identified gaps in staffing so the state can do a better job of providing public defense services. Staff did an analysis and found they need help in contracting and information technology. Analysts have had to “prioritize the contract work while setting aside the evaluation of program outcomes to determine success.” That puts the work to fix the public defender crisis at risk. The request is basically to add 3 positions. That will cost $445,000 for this two-year budget cycle and more in the future.

If this were an old time storybook, the Legislature could approve these funding requests and all the problems will be fixed. But this is not a storybook. It’s a long-term siege with these steps being just steps.