ST. LOUIS – In February, the ACLU of Missouri and the MacArthur Justice Center filed a class-action lawsuit in Cole County Circuit Court over delays criminal defendants face in getting public defenders assigned to them. The lawsuit alleges the state has underfunded public defenders, resulting in long waiting lists.
The ACLU recently reported that at the turn of the new year, more than 4,600 individuals, roughly 600 of whom are currently in pretrial detention, were on the waiting list for an attorney in the state of Missouri.
Despite the fact that these individuals have been charged with crimes and qualify for a court-appointed attorney, they are stuck awaiting their trial for months and sometimes even years before being assigned an attorney.
The groundbreaking lawsuit hopes to change this slow process, though with the COVID-19 pandemic impacting civil and criminal court proceedings in courts across the country it is unclear when the ACLU's case will proceed to hearings.
“This is the first case that I’m aware of that addresses the systematic use of wait list by public defenders or by criminal judges, but it is a well-known problem in this state,” said MacArthur Justice Center Missouri Director Amy Breihan in an interview with the St. Louis Record.
“As of Jan. 9, 2020, three indigent defendants have been in pretrial detention and on a wait list for over two years," the lawsuit states. "Forty-four indigent defendants have been on a wait list and in pretrial detention for over one year. The average number of days indigent defendants are on a wait list and in jail is 114 days.”