SEATTLE — A federal judge ruled Thursday that a lawsuit challenging the public defense systems in the cities of Mount Vernon and Burlington can proceed.
U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik also granted the case class-action status.
The American Civil Liberties Union has alleged in the lawsuit that two part-time attorneys contracted by the cities fielded more than 2,100 cases in 2010, although Washington state Bar Association guidelines specify full-time public defenders shouldn’t surpass 400 cases a year.
The lawsuit alleges the cities fail to impose reasonable caseload limits on attorneys, fail to monitor the public defense system and fail to provide adequate resources for that system.
In his ruling, Lasnik wrote that the evidence at this early stage could support a finding that poor defendants in the two cities “are deprived of counsel at critical stages of the prosecution and that the assignment of public defenders is little more than a sham.”
The judge did not grant the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.
Sarah Dunne, ACLU of Washington legal director, said she was pleased by the ruling.
A Seattle lawyer working for the cities, Andrew Cooley, did not immediately return an email seeking comment late Thursday.
Because of the heavy caseload in Mount Vernon and Burlington, the ACLU says the attorneys often didn’t meet with clients prior to going to municipal court or did not investigate charges by prosecutors, among other allegations, violating the Sixth Amendment, which provides the right to an attorney.
Cases seen by municipal courts like the ones in Mount Vernon and Burlington are misdemeanors, minor crimes that often carry convictions of fines or a few months in county jail.
Cooley said earlier that there have been no investigations by the Washington state Bar Association of the two contract attorneys — Morgan Witt and Richard Sybrandy. He also said there aren’t any convictions overturned due to incompetent legal work.
Cooley also said criminal defendants have other remedies if they don’t like their legal representation. They can get new lawyers if they don’t like the one assigned, he said.
In 2005, the ACLU pursued a similar lawsuit against Grant County over its public defense system. In a settlement of that suit, Grant County agreed to overhaul its system and undergo court-supervised monitoring for six years.
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