The public defender is calling for more funding for 2025

The public defender’s office will ask Idaho lawmakers to approve more than $16 million in additional funding for the coming fiscal year.

Christopher Lehosit, a budget and policy analyst for several state agencies, went before the Joint Finance and Budget Committee late last month to explain the public defender’s request for additional funding.

The request includes $16.3 million to supplement the office’s $49 million budget for fiscal year 2025 and pay primary and conflict contract attorneys as well as contract investigators, capital litigation costs and other overhead costs.

The state board will also request just over $226,000 to create new public defender offices in Shoshone, Benewah, Elmore and Jerome counties.

The State Public Defender exists because of a lawsuit filed in 2015 by the ACLU of Idaho on behalf of indigent defendants alleging that Idaho’s public defense system was inadequate. At this time, each county administered its own public defense services.

While the case played out in court for years, Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a bill in 2022 that shifted public defense funding from the county level to the state level. In 2023, he signed a bill establishing the state public defender. In February of this year, a district judge dismissed the ACLU’s lawsuit.

The state office came into force on October 1st.

Rep. Clay Handy, R-Burley, asked how the state office has evolved since then.

“Does it do what we wanted?” he asked. “Are we getting better results and fewer complaints?”

Lehosit said it was too early to tell.

“We will need a little more time,” he said. “We really only have a month and a half of data.”

In Kootenai County, the creation of the statewide office has led to an exodus of public defenders as well as private attorneys who previously defended indigent individuals on a contract basis when there was a conflict of interest or cases were full.

There are only 11 attorneys working in the Kootenai County office. A fully staffed office would have 26 public defenders. A total of six private attorneys have contracted with the state to handle public defense cases in Kootenai County, compared to more than 30 who contracted with the county before the new system took effect.

Due to the shortage of public defenders, some indigent defendants showed up in Kootenai County courtrooms without a dedicated public defender assigned to their case and ready to represent them.

Last week, First District Judge Robert Caldwell convened a hearing to consider four such cases, saying he had “never seen anything like this” in his nearly 16 years as a judge.

Jay Logsdon, the First District’s top public defender, said in court he was “heartbroken” about the state of public defense in Kootenai County and highlighted the lack of attorneys who can do the job.

“I don’t know that there’s going to be a solution until someone changes the rules as far as what these contract attorneys are willing to pay, and the only people who can make those decisions are down in Boise,” Logsdon said.