Executive Director: 'There is denial of counsel occurring.'
AUGUSTA, Maine —
Maine’s Commission on Indigent Legal Services is sounding the alarm that it urgently needs more funding to provide lawyers for all criminal defendants who cannot afford one.
Maine is the only state that does not employ public defenders, instead relying on a network of private attorneys paid by the state to do the work.
But the number of attorneys willing to be hired has shrunk 55% from a peak of 430 in 2017 to 410 in 2019 to 185 today, said Justin Andrus, MCILS Executive Director, in an interview at his office one block from the State House on Tuesday.
"We have arrived at the point that I cannot guarantee counsel to everyone who is entitled to counsel," Andrus said, "There is a denial of counsel occurring."
Ten indigent defendants in Aroostook County were awaiting representation on Monday, and Andrus said he did not know how many defendants might be unrepresented in the state’s 15 other counties.
He said, “We do not have data that allow to know who is in the criminal justice system until we learn of an assignment” of an attorney.
Half of the Maine attorneys participating in the system do state defense work full time, while 11 of them handle a quarter of the state’s caseload.
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