Editorial: State should use numbers to back up a public defense shift

Published 9:23 am Monday, August 4, 2025

Oregon’s legal system was imperfect 3,3372 times on Aug. 1. That’s better than the 3,755 times on Jan. 1, but not quite as good as the 2,830 times of Jan. 1, 2024.

Those stats are the number of defendants unrepresented in Oregon, as of those days.

We don’t expect perfection. But Oregon has a legal responsibility derived from the state and federal constitutions to provide public defenders to people who cannot afford to represent themselves. The state is not close to meeting the target.

Gov. Tina Kotek wrote what is called a “signing letter” when she signed House Bill 5031, the bill that provides the money for the Oregon Public Defense Commission. She was disappointed. She acknowledged the state is in a “resource-constrained budget environment.”

She called for more public defenders hired by the state directly, rather than a reliance on contractors. Most states do rely on direct employees, rather than contractors. It gives the state more direct control where the attorneys work. It makes it easier for the state to collect data. Just as not every lawyer wants to be a public defender, though, not every public defender wants to work for the state.

The Oregon Public Defense Commission had 17 public public defenders employed directly as of the end of last month, with three chief deputies, an attorney focused on expedited resolutions and another 25 staff members to support them. They are regionally based in the areas that have had some of the most difficult challenges in finding private public defenders: Portland, Salem and Medford.

Kotek vows that she will be coming back in the 2026 session with another plan for the state to employ more public defenders directly. When she does so, it will be important to demonstrate with numbers that the state gets more bang for its buck with state-employed public defenders, instead of contractors.