1 week Ago
The Maine Senate meets Tuesday in Augusta. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal Maine lawmakers voted Thursday to spend about $3.5 million to hire more public defenders and make it easier for judges to pick lawyers for people who can’t afford their own.
The emergency bill is a direct response to a judge’s plans to begin releasing people from jail and dismissing charges against criminal defendants whose constitutional right to an attorney has been denied. It now heads to Gov. Janet Mills.
A spokesperson for her office said she is reviewing the legislation. She has 10 days to decide whether to sign the bill, veto it, or let it become law without her signature. Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy was originally scheduled to begin that process Monday, but is now deciding whether to let Maine’s highest court weigh in first after the state appealed her latest ruling.
Maine’s public defense agency recently filed a plan promising to redirect staff who are normally focused on training, billing and other oversight to instead finding lawyers. There were more than 430 cases where a criminal defendant needed a court appointed lawyer as of Friday, according to a list maintained by the clerks. At least 90 cases involved someone being held in jail.
Not all of these defendants would be eligible for relief under Murphy’s order, which only applied to those who have been waiting for a lawyer in jail for more than two weeks. And the number is down significantly from what it was last fall when lawmakers say the crisis was at its worst. Majority Leader Rep.
Matthew Moonen, D-Portland, said that’s thanks to the more than two dozen public defenders already working around the state, many of whom were only recently hired. “Despite how little time they’ve had, the numbers are coming down,” Moonen said on the House floor Thursday. “We’re seeing real progress.
I think it’s our hope that we would continue to see real progress.” FUNDING DEBATES Outside the Legislature, there has been months of ongoing debate over the crisis’ origin. Civil rights advocates say it’s the consequence of a system long underfunded, while others suggest the crisis is only a new result of increased regulation.
LD 1101 only dips its toe into the fight. The bill sets aside roughly $3.5 million through 2027 to hire five new public defenders and some administrative staff, to help assign cases.
It also allows the state to pay a lawyer who a judge appoints, even if that lawyer hasn’t completed the commission’s training and application process. Attorneys are still required to have three years of relevant experience, and this provision comes with a February 2026 sunset date. The bill passed rather quietly in the Senate with little input.
Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, who helped bring the bill forward said in an emailed statement Thursday its passage was one of several “great bipartisan strides” taken in recent years “to advance our public defender system.” “I am grateful to everyone who ‘leaned in’ to find the necessary resources and shape this legislation, including all members of the Judiciary Committee, and a bipartisan, two-thirds majority of the Legislature,” Carney said.
In the House, where it passed 113-32, some members were concerned about the cost. Rep. Kenneth Fredette, R-Newport, unsuccessfully tried to convince other representatives to drop the $3 million request from the bill.
He questioned whether Maine’s new public defenders are taking on enough work. “We’re not here to say this is not important, or this isn’t good policy,” said Fredette on the floor. “It’s just a question of how we’re going to design the system.
Are we going to design the system by continuing to add people and spending more money, money that ...
we don’t have?” Moonen said hiring more public defenders will save the state money that its otherwise spending on reimbursing private attorneys $150 an hour. Maine is still paying for both systems because the state relied exclusively on private attorneys until late 2022. “The way to stop paying for both is to pay for the public defenders and reduce the amount of 150 an hour vouchers that are coming in,” Moonen said.
He also emphasized that three of the state’s prosecutorial counties — Cumberland County, York County and on the Midcoast — are still waiting for public defenders. CONSTITUTINAL OBLIGATION When the bill was first introduced, Mills asked the committee to remove union protections for new public defenders and scale back eligibility requirements for private attorneys who do court appointed work. Most of her amendments did not make the final version.
Earlier this year, Mills refused to include any new funding in her budget for the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services, which told lawmakers in January that it needed at least $35 million more than the governor’s proposal to hire more defenders and to continue paying private court appointed lawyers. Mills has argued the commission’s standards are preventing qualified private attorneys from taking on court appointed work, which the commissions staff have disputed. Rep.
Jennifer Poirier, R-Skowhegan, told other House members Thursday that the bill doesn’t have all of Mills’ requests, but they are planning to address those through other legislation. She and other members of the Judiciary Committee worked for weeks, she said, making several concessions across the aisle. “We’ve chosen to be unified on this bill because we do see the great need for this,” Poirier said.
“We’re talking about people’s constitutional rights not being taken seriously. ..
. This is a constitutional concern that we here are obligated to deal with.” Staff Writer Rachel Ohm contributed to this report.
Maine’s public defense agency to scale back billing oversight, training to focus on attorney recruitment A $3M boost to Maine’s public defense spurs objections on all sides We believe it’s important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It’s a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others.
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