Burlington, Mt. Vernon public defenders on trial in Seattle
Jun 3, 2013, 6:42 AM | Updated: 7:13 am
The public defender’s offices in Mount Vernon and Burlington are being put on trial. They are accused of spending little or no time on client cases.
The suit alleges that the public defender’s offices in those cities are systematically depriving low-income defendants of their constitutional right to counsel. It alleges caseloads are too high, and the attorneys spend less than 30 minutes working on cases, routinely pleading them out instead of working to get their clients off.
“What this lawsuit is about is that the public defense system in Mount Vernon and Burlington simply wasn’t providing representation to people accused of crimes,” said the ACLU’s Doug Honig.
The suit is asking a federal judge to require the cities to appoint supervisors to make sure the public defenders are doing all they can for their clients.
