I would love a follow-up conversation on how they get to phase 2 (let alone phase 3). My assumption is some major reforms / changes would be required but it’s just that, an assumption. Kudos to Matt for taking on this important work!

@1 I think that is answered in the article. You only have two choices hire more attorneys or somehow reduce the number of people you are charging. He tips his hand in the article by saying after 2020 "we turned a corner' so he and I'm sure many of the lawyers at DPD want to use these limits to essentially decriminalize large swaths of the penal code. if the SC upholds these standards I think you will see less charges for misdemeanors and other low level crimes due to lack of representation. How that impacts the rest of us remains to be seen.

@2 how would reducing public defender caseloads result in decriminalization? Seems like what the public defenders want is just to be able to spend an appropriate amount of time on each case. You don't have to have needed a public defender personally to recognize they are severely overworked. If they had fewer cases guilty people would still be convicted but the risk of an innocent person falling through the cracks because their lawyer didn't have enough time to do a good job would be dramatically reduced, which everyone should want.

@3 if there are not enough public defenders due to case restrictions it would violate a defendant’s right to a speedy trial and they would most likely have the charges dropped. I don’t disagree that they should have time to work on a case I’m just pointing out the likely outcome.

@4 fair enough, that could be the result if the county doesn't scale up their funding, but I suspect those attorneys themselves would prefer to be funded sufficiently to implement the new standards. Certainly seems like that's what Sanders is aiming for.

Great story. I got context on the whole issue. Thanks.

So if you're going to do this story, then you need to cover this: https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/council/governance-leadership/county-council/budget-review/structural-gap

Because the scope of what you would have to defund to pay for the additional asks in the PD budget would eliminate entire departments that provide county services.