PORTLAND, Ore. — A federal judge has ordered all Oregon counties to release criminal defendants from jail within seven days of their first court appearance if they're being held without a lawyer assigned to them, reasoning that doing so deprives them of their Sixth Amendment right to an attorney.
U.S. District Judge Michael McShane made the ruling Thursday, expanding an earlier decision this summer that applied only to Washington County and required the release of criminal defendants if they’d been in custody without representation for 10 days.
The order takes effect Nov. 16, and will impact those currently in custody and any future unrepresented defendants.
As of Friday, there are 135 people being held in county jails across Oregon who have not been able to secure their own representation and have not received a court-appointed public defender, according to a state website.
"In essence, they have been locked away without a voice, being too poor to afford an advocate to speak for them in the courtroom," McShane wrote in his opinion.
The judge’s order stems from a lawsuit filed by the Oregon Federal Public Defender’s Office on behalf of low-income criminal defendants.
The state’s public defender system, which provides lawyers for those who can’t afford them, has been underfunded and short-staffed for decades.
Oregon's public defender system is the only one in the nation that relies entirely on contractors. A report by the American Bar Association released in January 2022 found that the state has only 31% of the public defenders it needs.
"A lasting fix will require systemic change and legislative resolve," McShane wrote in his 32-page opinion.
The Oregon state legislature approved funding and structural changes in a bill passed earlier this year, promising to increase pubic defender pay and make other overhauls to the system.
"There is more oversight that is needed to address this," said Clackamas County District Attorney John Wentworth. "I know the legislature is working on it. I know the governor is interested in it, but at the end of the day, people shouldn’t sit in custody without legal representation."