Grant County settles defense lawsuit

Grant County has settled a class-action lawsuit accusing it of providing inadequate public defense — agreeing to do everything from capping the number of cases public defenders can handle to ensuring they don't suffer financially for pursuing a case vigorously.

The settlement allows the county to avoid a trial that was scheduled to begin today. In pretrial rulings a judge already had determined that the county's previous system suffered from "systemic deficiencies" and that its current system had enough shortcomings to create fear that indigent defendants wouldn't be adequately represented.

The settlement covers six years and calls for use of a monitor to ensure that Grant County complies with the agreement's terms.

The lawsuit was filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and Columbia Legal Services. The plaintiffs accused Grant County of failing indigent defendants by using public defenders who were overworked, unqualified or laboring under contracts that discouraged good work.

Doug Honig, spokesman for the ACLU of Washington, called the lawsuit and its settlement "a strong warning to all counties around the state that have trouble providing adequate defense for people who can't afford their own attorneys."

Grant County, in Central Washington, has struggled for years to provide decent representation to indigent defendants.

The state Supreme Court disbarred two of Grant County's public defenders last year.

The Washington State Bar Association found that each had requested payment from court-appointed clients they were supposed to defend for free.

One of those public defenders carried staggering caseloads that eclipsed limits recommended by the state bar. The other public defender was so incompetent that he requested "D and A testing" — he meant DNA — and told one client facing a felony charge that he could leave the country before trial, according to court and disciplinary records.

The Seattle Times published a series last year, "The Empty Promise of an Equal Defense," that detailed the struggles of Grant County and of other jurisdictions with similar public-defense systems.

The settlement requires Grant County to pay the plaintiffs $500,000 for attorney costs and fees — and, to encourage compliance, will add $100,000 for each year the county fails to honor the terms.

The lawsuit was being handled for the plaintiffs by the law firms Perkins Coie and Garvey Schubert Barer.

The agreement establishes minimum qualifications for public defenders, caps their caseloads at 150 felonies per year and restricts private work they do on the side.

The county also is required to hire one full-time investigator for every four public defenders, to hire a full-time supervisor for its public defenders and to provide an interpreter for lawyer-client meetings in the jail.

The settlement also requires the county to pay public defenders $350 for each day spent in trial, rather than limiting payment to a flat fee of $650 per case.

"So now they [the public defenders] at least have some financial incentive to try cases and not to avoid trial," said David Taylor, a Perkins Coie attorney who worked on the case.

LeRoy Allison, chairman of the Grant County Board of Commissioners, said he views the agreement's terms as refinements to an improved system the county already had in place.

The new terms will increase the county's annual public-defense costs in Superior Court to about $1.2 million, a jump of roughly 30 percent, he said. County officials hope to find the extra money somewhere in the budget without increasing taxes.

Ken Armstrong: 206-464-3730 or karmstrong@seattletimes.com