Latest / Dumb Defenses / 16. Special Guest Shannon Wilson
Transcript
- Frankie: Hello and welcome back to the Dumb Defenses podcast, where we go around the world and through time to bring you the weirdest legal theories. I'm Frankie. Judah: I'm Judah. Frankie: And we also have this week Shannon Wilson, who is my boss at the Public Defender of Marion County, the executive director there. once we deal with fresh hell, Shannon's going to chat with us about some of the state of public defense right now in Oregon, which is tenuous. Judah: Just a reminder for our listeners and my mother, we're all public defense attorneys. Sitting here right now. Frankie: Yes. Judah: All right, let's go with fresh hell. I hear Frankie: So Judah: terrible things are happening some more. Frankie: Yes. And so I took some articles from PBS, which was just citing the AP, the EEOC's website itself, and an article from Forbes. the big issue is that for the first time in sixty years, the EEOC is going to stop collecting workforce demographic data after a two-one vote by the board. There's a Judah: After after repeated requests to talk less like lawyers, EEOC stands for Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Frankie: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Yes. the board of the commission is made up of three people, two Republicans and a Democrat after Trump got his hands in there. And they in a two to one vote decided that they will no longer collect demographic data. There is a thirty day commentary period during which you can Send in comment on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking or NPRM. and that NPRM alleges that collecting the data is inconsistent with the law and potentially unconstitutional. This is news. so since 1966, all companies with at least 100 employees or federal contractors with at least 50 contractors have had to submit data via this form called the EEO-1. and they have to do this whether or not they've had a claim filed against them via the EEOC. So that form lists 10 job categories, and companies had to list on the form the breakdown by gender and race and ethnicity within each category. That data was typically gathered from about 50 million employees across 73. thousand employers nationwide. You okay there? Judah: We had interference from a dog. Frankie: Yep, okay. this information has historically been used by plaintiff side attorneys to track trends and build their case. This is one of those situations where Republicans are saying that talking about race is in and of itself racist and discriminatory, which is not how the world works, but I digress. So the current EEOC's chair. Is named Andrea Lucas. she's one of the two Republicans on the board. she argues that the required submittals of this EEO-1 form with all the demographic categories, that annual submission, quote, may promote racial stereotyping at work and it may encourage employers to engage in discrimination, end quote. and in This whole process she has encouraged white men to start filing discrimination complaints. Judah: Alright, so And Shannon, feel free to jump in. This is ADHD Power Hour. Frankie: Yes. Judah: so what we're hearing is it's racist to collect data that can track racism at work. But because Frankie: Yes, because talking about race is racist. Judah: talking about race is racist, that's a very classic move we've heard a lot. but if you're a white man and I am a white man. We're not suffering out out there, let me tell you what. But we should be encouraged to complain. I'm Frankie: Yes. Judah: gonna use this tomorrow and be like, Melissa, I've been encouraged to file Frankie: Haha Judah: an EEOC complaint and she's gonna tell me to shut up, rightfully so. Frankie: Yes. So the one remaining Democrat on the board, Kalpana Kodegal, she has warned that this move by the EEOC has essentially undone the entirety of the civil rights movement. And rightfully so. Right? So the end of this data collection, surprise, surprise, hi doggo, was part of that Project 2025 blueprint that we've heard so much about. Judah: Dipper shut it. Frankie: And the EEOC's website says that it costs, quote, $275 million on employers every year, as well as almost $4 million of costs to the EEOC to administer this data collection. And Ms. Lucas claims that such collection is unnecessary without, quote, any allegation, indication, or evidence of discrimination, end quote. But as one might guess. Former EEOC officials would disagree on that point. You were gonna say something. Judah: Just that to show that there's no racism by not collecting data on racism is Frankie: It's just like if we don't test people, there's not COVID. Right? Judah: Correct. Frankie: It's that same logic. Judah: Well and last week when I was when we were talking last week our fresh health sanded was food safety and there used to be eight food borne parasites that were tracked nationwide. Now there's only one. Frankie: And now it's two or one. Judah: There's one. and so that way there's no outbreaks. there's none of these parasitic outbreaks because they just stopped tracking parasitic outbreaks, including cyclosporia. This is that on like a much bigger scale. Frankie: This is a huge scale. So former EEOC officials have come together to say, quote, this is simply inaccurate and unsupported speculation at odds with the ways in which the data is actually collected, managed, and used, end quote. They say that the evidence shows that data is not used to engage in quota setting or other race-based hiring, but rather make sure that barriers are not being unnecessarily erected based on race and gender, which has been the whole thing all along, right? Like this practice went into effect pretty shortly after the EEOC was made. companies have previously been voluntarily publishing these forms of their own volition for the sake of transparency. But in recent years, because of the Trump administration, they've been starting to pull that back. because of the whole like We're gonna pull your funding if you do DEI stuff. And so because they've started pulling those things back, the Trump administration has now started accusing them that companies are improperly increasing women and minority hires and promotions using discriminatory tactics against white people. Judah: So we're since we're on this, the only refugees that are currently allowed to claim refugee status to enter the United States are white Afrikaners from South Africa. Frankie: Great, more Elon Musks. Judah: they're saying because they're being discriminated against because of their whiteness. There's there's been some recent articles that they're not really even letting the white Afrikaners in. But this is Frankie: Turns out apartheid is illegal. Judah: but but this is completely on brand for this administration and what we're seeing, Frankie: Right. Judah: and that's why it's fresh hell. That's why it's not what in the fresh good news, it's why it's what Frankie: Yeah. Judah: in the fresh hell. Frankie: And so there was this great quote in I think the Forbes article from a workplace trauma lawyer named Michelle Simon, summed it up by saying, quote, after all, you cannot fix what you cannot see, which is so true of all of this and is like the MO of the Trump administration of anything that looks bad for us, we're just gonna stop counting, and therefore it doesn't exist. Which is frustrating as I'll get out, and this in particular, like there have been a lot of really dumb moves rolling things back in this administration, but this is literally undoing the entire purpose of the EEOC, which is terrifying. Judah: Correct. If th if they could just undo the EEOC they would. Frankie: Yeah. Judah: But that takes extra steps. But Frankie: It does. Judah: thank thank you for that. I'm very, very excited to have Shannon with us. Frankie: Yes. I will say one quick thing in terms of the fresh hell that we had a couple of weeks ago. the executive order issue that was gonna fuck up all the ballots and everything, the mail in voting, the Supreme Court denied the stay, so that injunction is still in place, so everybody's gonna be able to vote by mail. Yay! Judah: in November. Midterms are very important. Frankie: Yes, please vote in the midterms. Judah: Please vote in the midterms. alright. So let's talk about I think this is more fresh hell, but this is like recycled hell. So I'm g Frankie: Recycled forty year Shannon Wilson: Yeah, no, I Frankie: old hell. Shannon Wilson: I was listening to what you were saying and I was just like, wow, there are so many commonalities when we see governments kind of shifting towards something that no longer serves the people, right? And this is these are like common tactics that are used. It's like let's just the purpose of this entity, just like similar to public defense, right? The purpose of this entire structure is to turn the lights on. to Frankie: Mm-hmm. Shannon Wilson: how things are operating, right? Turn the lights on and take a look at what is actually happening. we don't like what we're seeing, right? We don't like what you're saying. So we're just gonna go ahead and why don't you guys just go ahead and shut down. We want the lights off again. Frankie: Yep. Just Shannon Wilson: because if the lights are off, then you know we can't see what the problem is. which means maybe that problem's better. Maybe it's not. It's just so it's it it yeah, exactly. So I Frankie: It's now Schrodinger's problem. Shannon Wilson: just I'm listening and I'm like, my gosh, you know, it is it Judah: Well Shannon Wilson: is It's it's fresh hell everywhere, but I'm happy that you all are trying to turn the lights back on when they're turning off. So Yeah. Frankie: Trying to Judah: Well, Shannon Wilson: Yeah, trying to. Judah: so a a number of years ago when I was a pretty new lawyer at Umqua Valley Public Defender in Roseburg with Frank, I was assigned to have somebody from the Seventh Amendment study follow me around. Frankie: I did that too. Judah: Yeah, so I had my little buddy in a suit Six six Shannon Wilson: Wait, the Sixth Amendment? Frankie: Sixth Amendment, yeah. Judah: amendment sorry, Sixth Amendment study. Sixth Amendment study getting Shannon Wilson: I was like, I wasn't I don't hear about the Seventh Amendment study. That sounds that must be a level up. Yeah. Judah: That that would be an interesting study. Yeah. Frankie: Ha ha ha. Judah: I had the six amendment study with the five hundred dollar jacket follow me around for a couple of weeks Frankie: Mm-hmm. Yep, I did too. Judah: to produce a report saying that our public defense system is critically overburdened. There's unconstitutionally Frankie: Unconstitutionally underfunded. Judah: underfunded, overburdened, and please correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't think it's better today than it was what eight years ago. Shannon Wilson: Yeah. I think it's definitely disappointing as an understatement. Yeah. Frankie: so we're playing a little bit of inside baseball right now. Let's take a step back and just kind of explain how public defense has historically been funded and then kind of bring us up through where we're at today. Shannon if you wanna start off with that. Shannon Wilson: Yeah. Sure. So in Oregon, you know, we were primarily a system up until two thousand three that was funded, it was overseen by the judicial branch just solely, a state system. the state trial court administrator oversaw the administrative component of the bench and also the administrative component of public defense. And so I don't know how those fees were decided, but they were different is what I understand. You're kind of paid per case, the funding was different in each county. I don't I don't know enough information about that. But in 2003, Oregon switched to a system where we said, you know what, it's not okay to have the judicial department oversee judges and the defender in the courtroom. We should probably have some independence there. So they created the commission in 2003. There was the Public Defense Services Commission that was formed, and that operated still under the judiciary, so that's one of the branches. Right, judiciary, but there was some separation because the commission had some authority, you know, setting the practices, policies, procedures of the public defense delivery system, which was the agency for the state of Oregon. and then you know, these studies came out, like Judah mentioned, you know, the Sixth Amendment folks came in. this was legislatively funded. Surprisingly enough, both the Oregon. workload project, so the Oregon Project and the Sixth Amendment Study was both funded by the legislature and the real hero in securing that funding and leading that charge was now governor Tina Kotek. So then in two thousand twenty-three when the governor took office it was like you know what if this commission And this whole entity is now going to be under my purview. I'm going to change some things about the commission structure. So now we have the same commission, but under the executive. And the commissioners unfortunately have lost a lot of authority in what they can do. And so now we have a what I would consider almost purely executive agency now overseeing and running public defense. And that's why I think we're seeing a lot of the values around What it means to provide ethical representation really take a significant backslide. Frankie: Right. And so with that pay per case model, we had people who were just taking on cases because the more cases you took on, the more you got paid, right? And so Shannon Wilson: Yep. Yeah. And that's that it's not really different now, unfortunately. now we have contracts that say the more cases you take, the more you get paid. but they're describing it not as specific individual cases, but an overall caseload that has an assumed number. And that number is a number that was created for budgeting purposes and budgeting purposes only. It's no way a reflection as to the quality of the work that should be provided or whether or not effective assistance of counsel is provided. So Not to get too much in the weeds there, but the caseload has a certain assumption. They say it's a quota, or they did, they tried to, and if you go anywhere above that quota, then you will receive additional compensation. So they'll say, you know, lawyers, the more cases you take, the more money we're gonna give you. And so that creates an incentive for lawyers to take more and more clients, more and more cases, and just move them quickly in order to make more money. Which Frankie: Yeah. Shannon Wilson: is a conflict. If you're a lawyer, Frankie: Right. Shannon Wilson: you know that. Frankie: Right. So when I started practicing like fifteen years ago, I mean I started at doing the forty six dollars an hour. That's now been upped to like one forty finally. but once I was on a contract, when I picked up a misdemeanor case, I got three hundred bucks. When I picked up a juvenile dependency case, I got seven hundred and eighty dollars. When I picked up, you know, it it was like that and it was just For each case that you picked up, you got paid X amount of money, regardless of how much work you did on it. And the Sixth Amendment Center study was like, no, that doesn't work. Judah: Well, I want to bring out something as a part of the funding model that people might not understand. So back in the seventies, there was the office of the public defender. So we were funded and supported in a way that's similar to the district attorney's office. And then that went away. So you're at a public defense office, but really that's a non profit that has Frankie: Right. Judah: just a contract with the state. Frankie: Correct. Judah: And that exists in a lot of counties, but in Benton County and pretty much any rural county that you go to, there's no non-profit that's negotiating a contract and managing workloads. Things are contracted out piecemeal with individual attorneys or firms. And so Shannon Wilson: Yeah. Judah: in our smaller offices the lawyers essentially have no power. It's Either you do what we tell you or there's no room to negotiate because we will just replace you one at a time, or we will take part of your caseload and just assign it to someone else with Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: functionally no notice. Frankie: Yeah. our director when Judah and I were down in Roseburg called it essentially a credit card contract where like there's a whole bunch of terms and conditions and by signing up for the card you are technically agreeing to them, but there's also really no room for negotiation. and it also puts a lot of pressure on the attorneys to try and keep up with these caseloads. Where discovery has become so discovery is like the evidence, the police reports, body camera, surveillance camera, all that stuff has gotten much, much, much more complex because now instead of just having like a police report like you had in the 70s and maybe some medical reports or something, you have hours upon hours of this body worn camera cause like every single cop that shows up a incident that, you know, five, ten cops show up, that's five, ten times the amount of time that the thing was going on that you have to watch. Shannon Wilson: Yeah. Well, but going back Judah: Well just Shannon Wilson: can I go back to real quick, Judah, what you said Frankie: Yeah, absolutely. Shannon Wilson: about the structure. So yeah, it's true. Oregon is a mixed bag of public defenders. You do have like the private attorneys that can take, you know, a certain number, like a certain type of contract or an hourly contract. That means that if you're going to see your public defender, maybe you walk into a private office with just one attorney or a small firm and they also take other types of cases as well. There's that. And then you have your nonprofit office. And that I think is when people think of public defenders and they don't really know the system, I would think the nonprofit office is the most similar to what a legitimate public defense office is in the state of Oregon where you have, you know, attorneys here and that's all they're doing is just providing public defense work. And you've come to one office and you have your investigators there. You know, everything is just housed in one location. So I think that is good to talk about because what we're seeing in Oregon is, you know, in two thousand twenty-one and two thousand and twenty-two, we really saw Oregon after these reports initially came out, the leadership in public defense really said, you know what, let's invest in these public defense offices, these nonprofit Frankie: Mm-hmm. Shannon Wilson: offices. Because there is such there's an attorney shortage nationwide, not just in public defense, but just everywhere. And so they were looking, you know, long term and they said, How do we keep attorneys around? How do we bring more attorneys into public defense? Because we got a bunch of people retiring and no one's coming. So we really need to get ahead of this. And they always talked about it as the train, you know, and the tracks were gone and or the cliff or whatever they call you and then to turned into the crisis. But so they really invested and they released a lot of emergency funds. For training in public defense offices and emergency funds to hire new practitioners into public defense. And so we thought that was the beginning of something really great because they were growing and supporting the structure, the foundation that was training new providers and also at the same time putting additional funds, increasing that hourly pay that Frankie was talking about, increasing that pay so that people were wanting to stick around and see that it was possible to make a career out of public defense. And then we thought, okay, here we go, right? Public defense. this is something I can see myself in. This is something that I could see the new wave of public defenders coming in. This is fantastic. Getting really excited about it. And why it's so important is not because we're lawyers and we wanna you know, if you're in public defense, you're just trying to make a live like you're just trying to make ends. Mean you're not you're not Frankie: Mm-hmm. You want to survive, right? Shannon Wilson: You're you're not aspirations of the vacation home or you know, I just was bragging this week about how I purchased five pairs of new pants instead of deciding to sew my old pants again for another year. You know, I mean like this is just you know, it's just this is not the demographic that is concerned with making a large amount of money. But why it matters to us is that public defenders are they're attorneys that aren't going to stick around in the work unless they know they are helping. They are helpers. That is everything that they are made of. We feel healthy. We feel connected when we are able to help people around us. And the way that it was resourced prior, we were not able to actually help individuals. So around Frankie: Right. Shannon Wilson: this, 2021 and 22, we finally got some resources where they were thinking long-term and they were thinking about how can we support you so that you can continue to help people. And that was fantastic. And we thought that that was the beginning of something great and it would continue and unfortunately it just stalled out and there's a reason for it. We can talk about that if you want, but I just wanted to Frankie: Yeah, so where was the shift? Like where do you see and I know part of it has to do with like the shift from the judicial branch to the executive branch, but what else all happened in between there? Shannon Wilson: So they were looking at the effectiveness and the quality of the representation. This was a time in Oregon where we actually had public defenders working in the agency and I know there are a couple left, you know, shout out to those folks for hanging on. But there were a lot more public defenders that recognized, hey, just because you put somebody's name next to case number doesn't mean they're actually working it. So let's look and let's figure out what are ways that we can actually make sure that people are getting representation? What are ways that we can make sure that the money that Oregon's investing in these attorneys, that they're actually getting some value out of it? And we still don't know that answer now, but back then there was, you know, like the performance standards, the metrics. They wanted to look into the quality of the representation that was being provided. And in doing so, they were really pushing for standards that would ensure minimum competency. minimum ethical representation was being provided and the commission was looking at the workload standards so the organ project numbers and saying, hey, this is how much time we really need to help people, this is like the resource that we need to really make sure that what we're funding is actually making a difference for Oregon. that it's actually providing what we want it to provide, right? Like we're not just like pouring money down something we don't know what the return is. So they started to kind of create these different ways of looking at the the work that was being provided. And in doing so, they had to face the reality that if you gave somebody 300 new misdemeanors in a one year period when they already had 120 misdemeanors, they were not actually providing ethical and competent representation. And then when that happened And they called it out, then they realized that if we were to adopt something different than that minimum number of cases, or whatever that case expectation, then that would mean we can't slap a name next to every person that needs an attorney. We just don't have enough attorneys. So when Frankie: So let's talk about a little bit just like so people understand like 300 misdemeanors, like what does that mean? There are less than 300 workdays in a year if you take zero vacations and zero sick time. So that is being assigned a case or two every single day, not counting all the cases that you haven't resolved from the previous year, right? So It's not a workload model, it's a case count model. It's literally how many cases can you pick up? And so getting that one or two additional cases each and every day leaves you with what five point three hours to work a case? Five point two Shannon Wilson: Five point two six. Frankie: six hours to work a case. Shannon Wilson: If if we assume that folks never yeah, never took a sick day, never took a vacation day, there was no holidays and they just work, yeah, every week, every working hour they could possibly work. But that's a that's to assume that those new cases were all misdemeanors, right? But if you you think you remember that the probation violations what can't which can be just as involved Frankie: as complex. Shannon Wilson: and complex and well you can really put in just as much time depending on what the probation violation is. Now Frankie: Mm-hmm. Shannon Wilson: Remember, if you wanted to keep funding for your position, you would have to do more than 800 of those in a year. That's not reality, right? Like 300 isn't Frankie: No. Well and so Shannon Wilson: reality, but 800, like Frankie: And even and just to like depending on the county that you're in. so Shannon and I practice in Marion County. And that is a county where unlike Douglas County, where the courthouse and the jail and everything is just on the block from the office. In Marion County, the downtown courthouse is just a block or so from the office. But where all criminal cases start out. And where many of them wind up resolving with a plea or dismissal before trial is out at the annex, which is out on the outskirts of town. It takes at least 15 minutes each direction to get out there. the annex is attached to the jail. So the initial courthouse is out there and the jail is out there. At least fifteen minutes each way, and that's if you hit no traffic, which when does that happen? Shannon Wilson: That's it, yeah. And think about our clients, right? That's it. We have cars, right? Frankie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And our clients are are hoofing it or riding a bike or getting a ride or Shannon Wilson: Mm-hmm. Frankie: taking the bus. There is a bus stop right there, which is helpful. but out of that five hours, one of them is just one round trip for visiting the client. One of them is one round trip for your first hearing. and that's assuming that everything again runs smoothly, which it doesn't. You have clients who take longer than a half hour to meet with. You have this huge cattle call docket that hopefully you're in the front of, but who knows how long you're gonna be sitting there. And that leaves you with two to three hours to watch five cops hour worth of body cam. Judah: So like listening to all of this, if we're talking about like what does it take for a case, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: I used to do adult criminal, now I only do juvenile. If you're thinking about having a client, even on a really low-level misdemeanor case, like a trespass two, who wants to exercise their constitutional right to have a trial, where Is that attorney gonna get that time from to prepare for that trial? Frankie: Well, even just the trial itself is going to take a day, right? 'Cause you have jury selection, which can take two to three hours depending on what you do. and then you've got, you know, opening statements. You're gonna have one or two witnesses at the very least, and then the jury needs to have time to deliberate afterwards and charging the jury takes a half hour. Like giving the jury their instructions on how to understand the law so that they can come to their verdict takes like a half an hour. Cause even if it's just one charge, there's a whole bunch of like procedural instructions and like this is what knowingly means instructions and stuff like that. And so like just the trial takes more time than we're allotted under that system. Shannon Wilson: In the system still mm hmm. Yeah. Judah: Absol so like the assumption is that people aren't gonna use their constitutional rights. That that doesn't Frankie: Correct. Judah: exist. your constitutional right to have a trial functionally does not exist in this system. Frankie: Correct. Shannon Wilson: Not for everyone. Cause if you can afford to hire your own, then yes. And I think that's Frankie: Right. Shannon Wilson: the real heartbreaking fact of this all that for me is this is only a issue for folks that Frankie: Indigent people. Shannon Wilson: do not have access to wealth. That's what we're talking about here. You don't have the same rights as someone who has money. That fundamentally is not the country I grew up understanding that we had available to us. And I think that when you take away all the terminology, that's what this is about. It's about saying that you don't get to have a trial. You don't get to make sure that you were treated fairly or lawfully by law enforcement. You don't get to have somebody speak up for you, argue for your release from jail, argue for your ability to take keep your job, your housing, like you don't get that. So now what? You know? And that's what organ is choosing to do, without saying it directly, 'cause that's the Oregon way, right? Yeah. Frankie: Well and and so Judah: Yeah we're Frankie: the case count system versus what's going on now, which is if you read through the contract, it says, one misdemeanor is point zero zero three of a full time equivalent for an attorney, which just means we need you to pick up now it's three hundred and thirty if you do the math out, misdemeanors per year. Shannon Wilson: which we can say what it says to an attorney, right? But what it's saying to the people in the state is that you really don't deserve a lawyer unless you can pay for one. That's what this is saying. You don't deserve a lawyer with time to really do their job. You deserve a law clerk to fill out paperwork for you and maybe stand with you up there in front of the judge, but are they going to be doing work outside of that? No, it's not possible that they can. Judah: Can we talk about another reality that a lot of people who need public defenders are are looking at, which is things like houselessness, mental health issues, substance abuse issues, or potentially like volatile home lives, and like how does this shortage of time, energy, and resources disparately impact those types of populations? Shannon Wilson: I have not talked about this publicly, but what that means is that like in our county specifically, if you don't get a public defender at PDMC, you get a different type of public defender. You're forty percent more likely to suffer the most serious consequences on the table. Because their workload is so much higher, right? Like that's what we've been able to distill from the data that we have here. And that's the Oregon Judicial Department data that we're looking at. And so that means that you're 40% more likely to lose your job, you're 40% more likely to lose housing, 40% more likely to not have access to healthcare, to treatment, right? stabilizing factors that we know that we need to make sure people have, because if they don't, what happens? Right? Not a Frankie: They could just they just come back. Shannon Wilson: not not a good situation. And so that Frankie: Yeah. Shannon Wilson: that is the real impact here. And and guess what, everyone? If you aren't making sure that people keep their jobs, right, when they can, if you aren't doing everything you can to make sure that people are able to sustain their housing, sustain their familial relationships when it's safe and they can, right? If you're not able to keep someone's place in the community, guess who foots the bill for that person? Pretty much for the rest of their life. Frankie: The state. Shannon Wilson: It's the taxpayer, right? It's the taxpayer ultimately. So why are we, because of the rhetoric and the politically popular narratives, why are we doubling down on a system that continues to impoverish more and more people in Oregon instead of actually placing our taxpayer funds towards something that is going to cost less in the future? Why are we doing that? those are the questions that I have. Like why Frankie: Right. Shannon Wilson: have we all bought into this idea to spend more money, choose a more expensive way and in a more expensive way that actually is not investing in our infrastructure. Like, why are we doing this? and I think that the answer is because the people don't know the truth. It really has to be. Frankie: Right. And so to sort of dig in a little bit to what Shannon was saying, like even a short jail stay, even like a two or three day or even an overnight jail stay can be enough to make someone lose their job. So what happens when they don't have a job? then they can lose their housing. and or they can lose their health insurance? Right. If you go to jail, even if you're on OHP, that health insurance will get turned off while you're in custody. Which means getting out and getting into, say, a treatment bed if it's something that you need, or even just getting out to get your physical health taken care of is that much harder, which then in turn, you know, makes it more difficult for them to get back into a job because they're dealing with physical or potentially mental health issues. if somebody is on VA benefits or social security disability or TANF, any sort of state funded basic income, if they're in custody for more than 30 days, that gets turned off. And getting it turned back on is essentially going through the process again, which I don't know if anybody listening has tried to get onto social security disability, but you can expect to be denied the first three times. Judah: Is it alright if I jump in with some like not being shielded by a public defender's office nightmare situation? Frankie: Sure. Judah: So I operate in a county that has a special type of contract for people who represent dependency and delinquency cases. And this was supposed to be this big protection and this promise. It was started, I want to say somewhere around eleven years ago. It's not in every county. Marion County doesn't have it. Frankie: Are you talking PCRP Yeah. Judah: PCRP. So for people representing families or children in the foster care system or children who have been accused of a crime in certain counties, their lawyers are funded through the parent child representation program. Now those Frankie: As far as I'm aware, they have stopped the rollout. Judah: They have stopped the rollout, they have stripped back a number of the protections of PCRP. I mean really, the difference now is that my case cap is twenty to thirty less than in Lane County or in Marion County. And also my office has no negotiation room. So a few years ago When I first signed my contract to get on individual, I was required to have an assistant full time so that I could have my office doors open and my phone answered during business hours. We did not receive like a raise in our compensation, but the next cycle they said, Okay, we're gonna give you a raise in your compensation, and they stripped back the funding for me to be able to have an assistant to half time without providing me with the resources. like at all. So it's like you still have to keep your office doors open, but we're only gonna pay for you to have a halftime assistant. And so for me, the choice was either I do not receive the very, very, very small cost of living increase and I cut my own salary to keep an assistant full time, or I do something else. And at that period of time, I had also just gone through surgery for cancer. And the way it worked was either I appeared in court when these emergency hearings happened or I got in trouble. So my wife was propping me up and shoving a broomstick down the back of my jacket so I could sit upright because my abdominal muscles weren't functional because I just had surgery. And then they're telling me now you can only have an assistant halftime. And the person who I wound up becoming law partners with, very, very experienced, wonderful attorney, we joined forces and merged our offices so that we could keep our phones answered full time. In that time period, both of us had applied to jobs at other agencies. And the only reason my office is still open today is because the signing of the contract came before the job offers came. Like that was that period of time. And this week I will have appeared in four different counties to represent parents or children. So not just Benton, not just Linn, where our contract is, but Lincoln and Lane as well. And I care so much about my clients, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to be able to barely function. Like I pay for all of my own health insurance, all of my own dental insurance, my bar dues, the mandatory CLEs. I do not have a retirement account. Like that's all out of my pocket. And that's the reality for a lot of attorneys who are outside of the minimum tiny protections that a public defender's office gives you. So that's there's another horror story for you, and I care. Shannon Wilson: Yeah. I no Frankie: Yeah. Shannon Wilson: I I think that you bring up a really good point because the way that the state is shifting towards how they fund public defense, they want to dismantle, right, the groups of us, nonprofit offices or other groups, they want to dismantle that because when we're able to speak up as far as what is ethical and right. Right. we're organized and we're one voice. we actually can push back a little bit. And so now they're creating contracts, smaller contracts, even out of our office. Due to this last year, I don't know if you know, but they created a small firm contract from lawyers at our office. So they peeled off like about four FTE positions from our office in Marion County. And they're doing this elsewhere too, right? Like they're totally dismantling other like small firms or small consortias because if they can create right these individual kind of contracts, then they can like there's a term in economics, right? Where they they create competition within the market and then people are willing to like they're competing for these like contracts and it creates this really gross like incentives, which we're seeing. And The reason I bring that up in your situation is because that's absolutely right. What happens when we are all of a sudden like spread out running around to different counties? Like I have a case down in Josephine. I'm in Marion County, I have a case in Josephine County, I have a case in Hood River, right? Frankie: Right. Shannon Wilson: and it's like when they are spreading us super, super thin and making it impossible to do the work, and then on paper they're saying, the funding hasn't gone away, it stayed the same or it's improved. But the way that the funding is getting sent to us, right? The practitioners at this level, it doesn't pan out that way. We can't make ends meet. We can't be our own assistant. We can't be our own discovery technician and also conduct all these independent investigations in four different counties and keep our sanity and our health and not get divorced, et cetera, be a decent parent, whatever, you know, like you just cannot sustain. So you know, I'm sorry to hear that, but I just wanna say I think that this is intentional. I really do. Judah: oh is intentional. in our most recent contract cycle, so part of me having a contract is I have to do an i enormous amount of paperwork every month for the state. And we used to have point five of my total FTE be reserved and paid for for this paperwork and all these meetings that I have to go to with OPDC. And there was a more looming, you know, juvenile defense is We're seeing more and more people on the unrepresented list, but they're not publicized because it's confidential. So they're just really not publicizing these numbers, but it's really happening. And so to create the illusion that the state had created more FTE positions across the state for juvenile defense, all they did was say, You are still required to do all of that paperwork, but the point five FTE that we gave your firm to turn it in, now you have to take cases on that FTE. And then they announced that they had created all this additional FTE across the state because all those point fives add up from across the state. And so they're saying, yeah, we've created all this new, but all they did was say, All right, you can now feel, I guess, more happy about staying till eight o'clock at night trying to finish these enormous reports that you are required to turn in as a part of this contract, but you do not get any funding for. That just happened. Shannon Wilson: I'm so sorry to hear that. the word you use was illusion? That's absolutely right. That is such a good word to use because they're doing that, right? they're saying, we freed up this much, right, available time. No, they haven't. They're just not funding it. the illusion of public defense, right? Like that has become the agency's almost mission now, right? The state trial division. Frankie: Well it part of their mission is yeah. Shannon Wilson: The state trial division, right? This whole thing, you know, like you said that there's a list of folks, right, that are not getting representation, but Frankie: Mm-hmm. Shannon Wilson: they're crafting it in a way where they can say, like, we're actually meeting our metrics or providing because they're setting these metrics in this wonky way. The state trial division, you know, unfortunately there's good attorneys there and unfortunately they're being used to actually, you know, counsel people to waive the right to adequate counsel, to take a really quick, quick and dirty, fast and loose plea deal that's gonna, you know, slap with conviction and other lifetime requirements like sex offense registration, have immigration consequences and they're saying, look, we're serving more people because they're not on the unrepresented list, but they're creating these mechanisms that will not allow kind of like we talked about, we're just not shining light on the issue anymore. We're saying, hey, hey client, I we don't have really an attorney available for you. You could wait for one or you could take this deal. and just the way that you take this early deal is that you agree or you waive the requirement that I do my job as a lawyer. And there that is literally the waivers that are on file for these rapid resolution dockets, is that it says that I acknowledge and I'm waiving my right to have adequate counsel, I'm acknowledging and waiving my right to have full investigation, full discovery, and to have my lawyer be required to do everything that they would do on another case. I'm waiving all of that so that I can just get this over with. So that's like another example of what you're saying, Judah. Frankie: Well the agency is Yeah. There the agency is more concerned about the optics than actually like doing their job of making sure that Oregonians have adequate counsel, right? Because the big scandal that sort of launched all these rapid resolution dockets was that we had this massive unrepresented list because there were more defendants than could be picked up. by everybody providing public defense work in the state. It started out, you know, years ago and judges in Marion County were starting to appoint people from the appellate division, trying to pull people in from civil practice, like literally just trying to get a warm body next to this person in order to not make it look like they screwed up in funding us for the last thirty years. Judah: things are only going to get worse and I do belong to the redheaded stepchild of public defense that nobody talks about. But I mean just for example, I have a client, he's in detention. he has voluminous discovery to look at because it's a major felony case. And part of my job is to show my client what discovery is. Very low-level lawyer stuff. We're this is not fancy pants that he wants to l yeah, here here's Frankie: Yeah. Here is what you are accused of doing. Judah: what you're accused of doing. Here are the videos that they're going to use against you in trial. I'm going to show them to you. The only detention facility is half an hour from my office, so it's half an hour there, half an hour back. And I have to show him all this stuff. So when do I go see him? Sunday afternoon. I spent three hours in detention, because that's just what reality is. And I don't make extra money for that. I don't get paid by the hour. But I want to give him the opportunity this is not me going above and beyond. You're supposed to be able to see all the evidence in your case. That's one of the bare minimums. Frankie: Yeah, so Shannon, what have you been doing to try and combat this? Shannon Wilson: Yeah. So just being really open about, you know, like we're talking about tonight, or you know, being open about what the agency is doing, what they're asking of lawyers, either via policy or these contract terms, what is it really actually telling lawyers to do or incentivizing lawyers to do or not do and to be open about that? because you know, I'm gonna just add the because. Because like we just talked about the harm that's caused to our clients when we aren't speaking up. maybe the public doesn't see it, right? Because the mechanism is that the attorneys don't talk about it, right? They're either you know, worried about malpractice or worried about not being able to keep a roof over their head, one or the other, but they're not talking about it. And so what we decided to do And it's not just me, Frankie. You said, What are you doing? It's what we are doing at PDMC, because it really has taken all of us as a community to make the stand. I'm just the lucky guy that gets to talk about it. but it's speaking out. It's advocating Frankie: Mm-hmm. Shannon Wilson: against what is happening to our clients with these contracts, and with the way that the agency is operating. It is harming. entire communities and families and lives and it's super expensive. So Frankie: Yeah. Shannon Wilson: we spoke out and we refused to sign the contract and we brought the dec action in circuit court and yeah we had a trial on it in February. So and currently, you know, they're appealing the decision of course. But that's just I think the most obvious illustration of what we're doing to stand up for our clients. Frankie: Yeah, well 'cause the flip side, you were talking about earlier that, you know, if you go above and beyond your contract in terms of case pickups, you get paid more. The flip side of that is there was a clause in the contract that if you drop below a certain level, then potentially attorney spots could be taken away. Shannon Wilson: Yeah, you would lose if as the director of PDMC, if I wasn't promising that I would make my attorneys carry a minimum number of cases, then I would lose funding for those positions. That's what the contract said. And not just what the contract said, but I had conversations and emails with OPDC saying, Hey, That's pretty unethical. Here's the law. Here's what the Oregon State Bar Formal Ethics opinion says about these types of contracts. I can't sign this contract. it's not lawful. And they said, forget ethics. Ethics are not the standard under this contract. The only standard is this attorney caseload standard, which they called the MAC standard. And they said that's the only standard that we'll be using to analyze the work that you do and whether or not you're in compliance with the contract. So Frankie: And so what does MAC stand for? Shannon Wilson: it's supposed to stand for maximum attorney caseload. And it is in this last contract, they turned that into a expectation, so a minimum, like a floor quota. And it was going to be, I think, ninety percent is what the legislative budget note. Anyways. But ninety percent of that maximum attorney caseload, which is the equivalent to three hundred brand new misdemeanors or a hundred and fifty brand new felonies every year for each attorney. Frankie: And ninety percent of that is still like two hundred and seventy. I don't tend to do math in public, but that's round enough numbers. Shannon Wilson: Well, I think Judah: What Shannon Wilson: it actually turns out the real Mac is three hundred and thirty three actually Frankie: Mm-hmm. Shannon Wilson: because it's twenty five per month, twelve months in a year. I'm not a mathematician either, but hey, I have a calculator. And yeah, so it's it's actually a little bit more. Judah: I wanna talk for a second about, you know, why should somebody who could maybe afford to hire their own attorney care about this? So it's you it's the self-word like why should you care? For for me I care because all of my clients are real people. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: Most of the people that I represent are really, really painfully normal people who are not affluent where a very unreasonable situation has arisen for them. For whatever reason. But but why why should the affluent people Shannon Wilson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you can afford your own attractive Yeah. Judah: Yeah, why should affluent Shannon Wilson: Yeah. Judah: people care that and like the legislature that this is happening to all these real people. Shannon Wilson: Yeah. I think that you should care well there's the there's the economic side of things, right? You're you're funding this and what you're funding is an illusion. It's not actually to make sure that things are fair and lawful. That's not actually happening. So what are you paying for? That's number one. The other thing is that as a member of this community and the state, right? If there isn't a strong structure for public defense, or not even just strong, a reliable structure in public defense, then that means the way that our system is built, that means that one pillar of the entire justice structure is not in existence. So if you are somebody that has hired your own lawyer You are facing an entire structure, entire process that is been developed with just a properly funded prosecutorial arm, so what is accusing you, and a properly funded judicial arm, what is going to judge you. But now you have a system that has been in existence year over year with just two of the really necessary things. three components for a fair, impartial, judicious system to be in place. you know, a plane doesn't fly just because it has one engine, right? Like you need like multiple engines operating at the same time. It's the same thing with our justice system. If we just, you know, have one wing and we just have like two engines on one wing, like this thing is not considered operational. And that's what's happening. So you are now walking into a system that is fundamentally unfair. Right, that is used to not having checks and balances. you're in a system that's used to operating in the dark, right, without any protections. The rule of law really doesn't apply. And fundamentally like your chance of being somebody that can be successful in that system that is built this way and continues to function that way, is slim to none. You aren't going to be facing a the process that I think our framers intended you to face or whatever that language is. You know, so I think you should care because what public defense is, we are unpopular. Why? Because not because of who we represent, because I think the folks that we represent are people that are facing the worst situations in America right now. Right? These are people that are suffering in ways that if you're in front of a computer right now or you're listening, chances are maybe you have at some point in your life, but maybe not in this moment. Maybe you aren't suffering in these ways, right? Our entire purpose as a public defender is to make sure that we are auditing those other components of the criminal justice system. That we are that, like you said at the beginning, we are that regulation that makes sure. that people are operating honestly, that people are following the law, judges and prosecutors. Like that is our role. And if we're not there to be that check and that balance, then that critical component that ensures that our system is ethical and constitutional, is not there. So it's really scary. And I think that that's why folks should probably care about it. Yeah. Frankie: So I wanna kinda make this a little bit more concrete for some people because I've talked to people, so I assume that there are people listening who are removed enough from the system that it's still kind of nebulous. So and this is a fact pattern that I've seen over and over and over again a mutual combat fist fight between brothers. Okay. if you get in a mutual combat, fist fight, wrestling, what have you, with your sibling and you land the punch and they don't, so they have a bruise and you don't. Because you are adults related by blood or marriage, it is considered domestic violence under Oregon law. Oregon Judah: It's not Frankie: Yes, it is. Judah: It shouldn't be. You can sorry, I've defended this before. Go ahead. Frankie: Well, I'm just saying in terms of how the system approaches things, right? Oregon is a mandatory arrest state for domestic violence. So you get in a normal sibling tussle with your sibling. You wind up getting arrested, being brought to jail. You have to be in jail overnight because you cannot be released, you cannot have a bail set until you see the magistrate. That's a new law as of two thousand and *twenty two. And the magistrate that you happen to see has a bias against people who commit domestic violence, and all they see is domestic violence on the charging document. So they set your bail at something that you cannot afford. Now you're stuck in jail over something that probably wasn't actually criminal, and you are given an attorney because Can't afford the bail. an attorney is really expensive. you know, if you're in a city, they can charge up to like four hundred and something dollars an hour. And you're sitting in jail and you're waiting and you're waiting and you're waiting for somebody who has less than ten hours to work your case to come visit you, shove a plea sheet in your face and ask you what you want to do. That's why that matters, because that feeling that you're feeling right now is the feeling that all of the people who come through our doors as public defenders feel on a daily basis. And frankly, they are frequently less well equipped to deal with that than most of our listeners, because these are people who are very likely dealing with some sort of substance misuse and or mental health and or houselessness. or inadequate housing, like couch surfing, things like that, who cannot get to and from the courthouse because they don't have transportation, because their license is suspended, or they just can't afford to have a vehicle. And all of these things add up. You know, Shannon was talking about the disparity of outcomes between individual practitioners who are following the MAC standard versus our office. That 40% difference is not just convictions, it's jail days, which costs somewhere, I was doing the research at one point, somewhere around fifty to eighty dollars a day to house somebody of taxpayer dollars, or imprisonment, which is eighty to a hundred dollars a day of taxpayer dollars. So you can pay a little bit more up front to get adequate counsel, or you can pay for all sorts of people to be incarcerated who didn't actually commit a crime. And that's what it matters. Shannon Wilson: Yeah. I like your example, but I also like a real life situation that I saw in court. If I can just share it really quick. But we know what our mental health services and behavioral health services look like in Oregon. You know, it's not good. I think you're number forty-nine in the country. Frankie: I was gonna say I think we're forty ninth in the country. Shannon Wilson: And so we have a mother in the courtroom And she is the person that the state is saying is a victim of a crime. And her son is behind the plexiglass, you know, separated from the courtroom. being read the charges by the judge. And the mom's in the courtroom and she wants to speak up and she wants to say, you know, my son, I called the cops on him. He's 19 years old. I'm his only care provider. He's, disabled. I called because I was in a tight situation. You know, I just wanted him to be safe and I was looking for help. There's no like we aren't resource for crisis response teams. You know, it's not quote unquote medical emergency, like we don't have that set up. And so she just in the moment reached out for some help in the moment, not knowing that when she would call for help that her son was going to be taken into custody. So he's there and he's being arranged on charges that he doesn't understand. She's the only person that really like can communicate with them, can calm him down, can sue them, you know, not only is the judge gonna hold him, but if the judge were to consider releasing this 19-year-old back into the community, the judge would place a no contact order, just blanket no contact order because it was a domestic violence type situation, right? that's the allegation. That means, mom, you called the cops for help, right? You called 911. Now your son's in custody. You can't talk to him. You can't sooth him You can't help him regulate. You can't tell him when he gets out that he can come home. You have to figure something out. So imagine that damage is doing. Not just for the young adult, right, that is being held in jail and no one in there knows what their medical needs are, right? The public defender, the attorney would be the only person that would know that. It's gonna take them days, you know, to get an idea. and if you have a client that can't really communicate, it's gonna take longer than days when that mom knows right away what does she do? You know, that whole family, that mom is being victimized and this happens all the time. This isn't just we're not just talking about the defendant here. We're talking about other family members that are impacted by the system. And so even if it's not you, you personally, it could be your son, it could be your family member, you know, that needs an advocate. Who does the family talk to? How do they get this information in front of the judge as quickly as we can so that the best outcome can happen, not just for the person, but the whole family? And so I just wanted to bring up that example because I think it's so important to know that there's a one track when you call for help and it's on a family member, there's a good chance, and I'm not trying to dissuade people from doing this because what other choice do you have? But the outcome could very well likely be that your entire family is now separated. And to put that family back together is gonna take a ton of state resources and time and it'll take years to do that, right? So that's the track we have set up right now. Frankie: Yeah, and even while in custody, there's gonna be a no contact order if it's a domestic violence case. And, you know, my job as the attorney is to say, don't talk to anybody on the phone about your case, right? Because not only is it just all the phone lines are recorded and that's just not a smart idea, but also like if that individual then calls his mom, there's the potential that they would bring witness tampering charges and he would just be in more trouble than he was for just, you know, the minor assault or whatever it was. Judah: To add to the parade of horrors, since I'm always gonna bring up juvenile law, so I had to go through years of special training to get where I'm at today, which is to represent juveniles in major felonies and waiver cases where the state is attempting to charge a child in adult court. The average life expectancy for a public defense attorney in Oregon is about seven years. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: It took me about seven years just to get these qualifications. And if I'm assigned to your case, because Generally, children in delinquency court, they all get public defenders. If you are a parent and you're thinking, I'm going to try and hire a criminal defense attorney for my kid who is not a public defender, and you're calling around and the first question that you're asking is, I just want an attorney who's worked with children before and is familiar with the delinquency system, the odds are that you will not be able to find someone to hire. who is familiar with the delinquency system, let alone actually having training and experience working with different developmental stages that impact children. You can't, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: not for money, find somebody to hire. So if we go away, you have nobody. Frankie: Yeah. And so at PDMC we're working really hard to make sure that we are giving our clients the best representation that we know how. the judge well, I'll let Shannon explain how was the injunction actually issued. Shannon Wilson: Yeah, Judge Wetzel in Cleckamas County ordered that the contract as written, the unlawful terms, the unethical terms that says, you know, caseload over actually meeting your ethical obligations, that those were to fall away. So those terms those terms were out. And I remember specifically the DOJ attorney saying, who decides What's ethical? Like what terms are ethical and what terms aren't ethical? And Judge Wetzel said, the attorneys. The attorneys decide that. And just the look on the DOJ attorneys' faces to say, you know, an attorney has to choose what is ethical and what is not. It was like the shocking moment. And I just was, you know, anyway, so it was it was a moment. but that's essentially what it says. If an attorney is looking at this contract and says, Well, these terms would have me abandon my client just to meet these contract terms to to the agency to get funding, I don't have to follow those terms. as long as we're operating in good faith, right? Like truly, and an ethical attorney will, which means that I will still, when I have availability, when I have capacity, I'm going to take new clients. I'm going to take new clients as long as by taking a new client, I'm not harming my current clients, right? So it's kind of like a do no harm value system in our practice. So that's what the injunction said is that an attorney gets to determine their ethical obligations and terms that would say otherwise fall away. and I think that's the best way to summarize it in a simple way. Yeah. Frankie: Yep. And so we've been able to keep that up, which is a breath of fresh air for me. little bit of my personal story. I did public defence for a long time down in Douglas County and I burned out really hard because I had too many clients and I cared a lot about each and every one of them 'cause specifically I was doing treatment courts, which is you're all up in their business. And then I had some criminal cases on top of that and I was not allowed to drop them because I was told we have to pay the bills. And so I burned out really hard and was not going to come back without ethical caseloads because I've been down that road and it's not fun. It's not fun. It's not good for your mental health. It's not good for your physical health. Public defenders were leaving in droves under the prior pay per case and they they just put lipstick on it and stuck it back out for public consumption under the new contract. Judah: As my gr dearly departed grandmother used to say, it's like spraying perfume on a cow pie. Frankie: Mm. Judah: It's for our listeners, so like how I take things now all the people that work in my office, we do not contract for a full caseload what we're said we're supposed to, so we make less money because we found if we contracted for a full caseload that we could not meet the needs of our clients. So we make less money and we still work more than forty hours a week to meet their needs. And so that's where we're at right now. And I gotta be honest, I love my clients, I love what I do, I'm very experienced, and I am actively in the process of burning out of being a public defender. Frankie: It's a lot. It's a lot of secondary Shannon Wilson: Yeah, no. Frankie: trauma. It's a lot of work, you know. Shannon Wilson: I'm sorry to hear that, Judah. I'm sorry I'm also really happy to hear not what you're experiencing, but I'm just that takes so much strength. I think your group is rare to say we're gonna choose the path of making sure we can do the real work for as long as we can, instead of taking the more funds and and just pretending to do the work and the outcome, right? If it's one or the other, it's like either you numb out and continue, or you can't numb out because you care too much and you have to leave. and I think that's the reality. I think that If public defenders can't find a way to ethically practice in public defense, then lawyers have to leave public defense. I mean, if you're gonna be an ethical attorney, then you have to leave public defense. And I think that's what we're seeing here, right? and I'm not saying that folks that stick around in public defense are all unethical. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying it does create like two pathways. You know, and then there's one that accepts that people can only hang in there for so long and you'll start to hear this. It's just a normal part of public defense is the attrition. that's just part of it. You know, just kind of like the way it is. That's kind of how public defense operates. or you'll see folks just stick around and then you'll hear like the rhetoric of, I've been doing this a long time and that's why I can watch ten hours of body cam faster than you whipper snapper or whatever, you know? it's like those are the options. The good ones have to leave. and then the ones that we have stick around maybe just might be cutting some corners. I think that they have to continue. You know, you have to kinda cut corners to continue. Yeah. Frankie: And I did wanna bring up, Judah and I talked about this briefly pre-show, that the Washington Supreme Court has recently handed down a significant limitation on the amount of weighted cases that an attorney can take there. Which I believe is a weighted comparison to a hundred and twenty misdemeanors as opposed to our three hundred misdemeanors. and I think their juvenile is also about half of what PCRP is expecting the juvenile attorneys to take. Judah: Yeah, so in PCRP your MAC is eighty. for other counties they just keep dumping on you. I know attorneys who are amazing attorneys who have a hundred and twenty clients. and it's also very tempting. I have family in Washington and my wife just graduated with her doctorate, and if I moved there, my MAC would be forty. What a dream that would be. Frankie: And you know, there's some concern that in the northern counties that are just across the river from Vancouver, so the counties that make up the Portland metro area, that attorneys may just hop over. especially with Multnomah County still being one of the crisis counties where they still have that huge unrepresented list. It's super easy to just hop over and wave in from Oregon to Washington as long as you've been practicing for three years. So that's another place that attorneys might flee to if they feel like the caseloads here are too much. Shannon Wilson: Yeah, and I think law schools are seeing folks interested in public defense choosing Washington over Oregon. I think that is actually happening. Mm-hmm. Frankie: For the same reason. Mm-hmm. Judah: What would you choose here? If I had a law student come talk to me, say, should I go to Washington or should I go to Oregon? I would look that enterprising, beloved, enthusiastic young person straight in their face and I would say, Run. Shannon Wilson: come to PDMC. And we'll try to well yeah. Yeah. No, no, I know. I know. I know. I know. Judah: Y'all don't have a juvenile division. Y'all don't have a juvenile. Frankie: Yeah we we Shannon Wilson: I I'm I'm just joking about that. No, I think that there are some interscripts that are pushing for expansion and well maybe even just a resuscitation of PCRP, right? And expansion across the state in this legislative session. So, hopefully that takes off and we can expand it and bring it back to what it was intended to be. Judah: Yeah, be they took away our weighted, so we're doing more with less. So the the protections that PCRP had, this big promise of P C R P is gone. and Frankie: Well, it costs a lot more than they expected it to, I think is part of it. 'cause the original plan way back when was to slowly roll it out across the state and then, assuming that it worked in terms of outcomes, which surprise, it works when people are allowed to actually work their cases, roll out something similar for criminal cases. But it became so much more expensive versus the crap of the MAC that they stopped rolling it out. Judah: So my caseloads right now, it's the lowest I ever had them in my career. It is preferable eighty is too many with what we're seeing now, because when PCRP was designed, cases were different. So the types of cases that were still going through court were different. Now you only have super complex cases. You don't have lower level cases. You only have the super complex ones because of the way filing works. But PCRP counties, get better results. But problem is you have to be very qualified. You have to have a lot of special training. OPDC doesn't pay for it. They keep asking me to take post-adjudication relief cases. And I have told them at least five times now, I don't know how to do them. You have to give me a mentor. And they say, Well, we can't pay for a mentor. We just want you to take the case. And so I say no. Cause it's not a part of my contract. and yes, it's more expensive, but the results are. Kids are back in home sooner. There's fewer OYA commitments, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Judah: so fewer children in long term detention care. it's not care, it's baby jail. And so the it Frankie: It's prison. It's baby prison. Judah: it's prison for babies. as young as 13. So when attorneys have more resources, you could see with how it was with the data that you were getting, if you give us better, the results are better. The cases are shorter. There's better outcomes. There's fewer people that are coming back into the system. So please expand that, bring that back to what it was, and give every attorney, every public defense attorney in this state the opportunity to do the thing that we really want to do, which is help people in this system and help make sure that we do not have to see their lovely faces in our offices ever again. Because that is what we want. Frankie: Yep, absolutely. Shannon Wilson: yeah. I wanna say too that you talked about the two options, right? The two options, either you burn out or you numb out. I think that here in PDMC, you know, I think this would apply in juvenile too, but there is a third option. And I just wanna echo what Judge Wetzel said is your ethical obligations, like what is ethical, what is not, as determined by you, attorney. Like Frankie: Mm-hmm. Shannon Wilson: you have authority here to say no. And the law supports you in saying no. The rules of professional conduct support you in saying no. You have an obligation to our clients to say no to what OPDC is doing and to taking more and more, right? You don't have to That's what the ruling said. And every attorney can step into their ethics, they can wrap themselves in their ethics and they could say, I am not going to abandon my clients. and you, OPDC, cannot say I am required to take on more and more in order to keep my funding. You, OPDC, cannot say I have to cut resources, cut time away from my current clients in order to keep a contract. Like that's what the ruling said. and so there is a third option now here in Oregon. what really is I think difficult and I understand that it's complex and I make it sound really simple. Like going through like us on that journey, right? PDMC on that journey, it is not easy. It didn't just happen overnight to get to that point. But we're here now and I think what PDMC represents is that the third option is possible and that the law supports attorneys in standing up. And being able to be truly advocates for our clients. The law will back you in Oregon. How do we get folks to stand up? Like how do we get more and more folks to say, I can say that I am not going to abandon my duties to my clients, I'm gonna fulfill my ethical obligations, OPDC be damned, contract terms be damned, and you still have to fund me. Like how do we get folks to make that jump? I think that's a really interesting thing to think about, and I don't know the answer to that. yeah. I just wanted to say that because I think that's Frankie: Yeah. Shannon Wilson: kind of like the elephant in the room. Like why just PDMC, right? Yeah. Frankie: And I think you know, 'cause the state's appealing the ruling, and I think once the Court of Appeals rules on it, assuming that they rule in our favor, I think that will make people feel a little bit, you know, better in their tummy about I can actually do this without risking losing my livelihood. Shannon Wilson: Yeah, I think you're right. Frankie: Thank you for turning your light on Judah, it was bothering me. Judah: Well I was listening to so much interesting stuff that Shannon had to say, then I realized I looked at myself and I looked like the cryptkeeper, Frankie: What do you think? Judah: you know over here. Just 'cause it's getting darker and darker because I was relying on natural light. Frankie: Ha ha ha ha. Shannon Wilson: Yeah, it's like the theme. The dark and the light is the theme, yeah. Frankie: So Judah: Yeah. Well, I would love if that stuck and if we had meaningful systemic changes like we've seen Washington be able to enact and and stick to because I've met a lot of public defenders in my day. We can make money, we can make more money doing anything else. And everybody still is we're contrarian, scrappy little fighters who want justice and they want to make sure that everyone has that access and they give up the opportunity to maybe not think that much about buying new pants for work. Maybe not think that much about it. We give up that opportunity to do this. And so I'd like to see an opportunity where we could be meaningfully supported and also that we don't have to think, you know, at at at the end of the day, can I afford to pay my bar dues, keep the lights Frankie: Right. Judah: on, and ever go to the dentist? Frankie: and I mean it is a really fun job and on that note before we sign off, Shannon, do you have a favorite dumb wacky defense that either you or somebody else has put up? Judah: Doesn't have to be dumb, it could just be weird. Frankie: Yeah, it can just be weird. Shannon Wilson: Yeah, I gotta be honest with you. I kind of didn't know what to talk about and I'm like, what what do I talk about? I've heard so many wacky things in my career and I mentioned this to my partner, Mae Lee, and she goes, I know what the dumbest offense is and so can I share that one? So Frankie: Absolutely. Shannon Wilson: Mae Lee like really appropriately pointed it out and I thought it was it was very appropriate, yeah, just but with a lot of enthusiasm because can I also say that Mae Lee is an incredible person and is a it's is Judah: Mae Lee is an incredible person. Shannon Wilson: a huge fan, Frankie: She is amazing. Shannon Wilson: it's a huge fan of your podcast. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Shannon Wilson: seriously, so I want to say that. And she's also yeah, just a really good person in our community and Frankie: Mm. Shannon Wilson: a great advocate for criminal defense lawyers. So she pointed out that the dumbest offense that we've heard recently is directly from OPDC When Director Sanchagrin took the stand and testified, quote, we can only Frankie: I remember that. Shannon Wilson: deliver what we can deliver based on the budget provided. We have endeavored to lower caseloads and implement national standards, but we can only deliver the cases that we have funding for. It doesn't make it okay. That's it. What? Judah: That's a good one. That's perfect. I'm gonna give Malee a round of applause for many things with that. Thank you so much. Shannon Wilson: Yeah, but I mean she just pointed out, you know, I thought that was great because well, you know, if you only have so much funding, it doesn't mean that you cut corners with that funding, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Shannon Wilson: right? It doesn't mean that you provide ineffective assistance of counsel. So that Frankie: He also refused to ask the legislature for more money. Like the I Shannon Wilson: well yeah, there's that too. But Frankie: was watching the legislative days and I was watching the OPDC meetings. And on a Monday, he told the legislature, you know, we're not gonna ask you guys for more money. We can do with what we have. And then on Wednesday he told the commission, you know, we just don't have enough money to change this. And I'm like, Shannon Wilson: Yeah. Frankie: you were so close. Shannon Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. Judah: We were here. We needed you here. We needed you over here. Shannon Wilson: It yeah, I wanna say too that like I think that was the dumbest defense, right? Like that he said that. and it i i it Frankie: Mm-hmm. He essentially gave up the goose in his testimony. Shannon Wilson: but I think that what I do wanna give him credit for, and I think this is like a a little sneak peek into who he is. I think like in his character and his in his makeup, who he is. Is a person that recognizes that what is happening is not okay. And that is an opening. And so I also want to say that yes, this may be the position that he's put in, and he has Frankie: Mm-hmm. Shannon Wilson: to put forward this defense to what the agency is doing, but he knows that it can't stay this way. And so I guess I am not really hopeful because that's not in our makeup. I want see reality for what it is, but I just want to say that there is an opening, because he does recognize that. what is supposed to happen is not happening in public defense. Frankie: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you, Shannon, so much for joining us. next week well, it's tomorrow for me and Judah, but next week for everybody else. I will be talking about whether or not a personal airplane can be confiscated for a pack of beer. Judah: And I will be talking about the only case in American history where the court allowed a ghost to testify. Frankie: So as always, like, subscribe, and share our podcast so we can continue to grow. You can reach out to us on Facebook, Instagram, or Blue Sky, or by email at dumbdefensespodcast at gmail.com. And we'll see you next week. Bye. Judah: Bye.