The inadequacy of urban criminal justice reform when applied to the rural

The criminal justice system implicates the rights of those swept up by it in numerous ways. If you have every watched a crime tv show you know defendants in the criminal system have the right to an attorney and the right to a speedy trial. These are important and are supposed to operate as safeguards against unfair treatment of defendants in our system. 

A problem arises when there are too few attorneys or legal resources to adequately handle the demand of defendants in a community. This problem is prevalent in rural areas, which are often in "legal deserts". The problem is often compounded by state legal ethic rules which require public defenders to limit their caseloads in order to provide high quality services and diligent representation to their clients.

There have been efforts to solve attorney shortages in rural areas. For example, a program in South Dakota offered stipends to attorneys who agreed to work in rural areas for a set amount of time. The program was able to place 32 attorneys in rural areas over the course of a decade by providing those attorneys with a stipend that allowed them to pay off student loans. But such programs are not necessarily viable in states like California where the cost of law school tuition is significantly higher, meaning stipends would put a far greater strain on the state budget. 

In the context of the criminal justice system, it is also apparent that attempting to offer prospective public defenders and assistant district attorneys more competitive pay does not completely solve the problem either. 

In an effort to ensure indigent clients receive better representation, King County in Washington has attempted to implement public defender case caps, limiting the amount of work a single attorney can take on. The decisions was based on the National Public Defense Workload Study which was published recently and offers some astounding findings about the amount of work public defenders take on.  For example: 

"In one widely reported instance, for example, attorneys assigned to a misdemeanor caseload at a metropolitan office providing public defense were each appointed to an average of 2,225 cases per year. Assuming that 40 hours each week of the year were devoted to nothing but client representation, this caseload would allow an attorney to spend an average of about 56 minutes on each client’s case. In that same office, attorneys assigned to a felony caseload were appointed to an annual average of more than 436 noncapital felonies, effectively allowing for only 4 hours and 47 minutes, on average, to defend clients facing decades in prison."

The report also briefly cites the experience of Rhonda Covington, the sole public defender of two rural Louisiana counties, who had 265 open cases to handle by herself.  

Case caps are certainly one way to improve the quality of service indigent defendants receive from their appointed defenders. It also aims to solve the shortage of attorneys in indigent defense roles by making the career more sustainable. However, this reform doesn't appear to be a solution tailored to the situation rural communities find themselves in. Case caps may work in an urban setting where the effect would presumably be attracting more of the already existing attorney population to the public defender role, but rural areas there is no preexisting adequate population of attorneys to attract.  

Even movements like progressive prosecution place an emphasis on diversion which requires rehabilitation facilities, programs, and resources that rural places may not have. Non-enforcement, policies adopted by prosecutorial offices to not pursue lower level charges, also present a problem for rural areas. While not wasting resources on lower level crimes may result in better service for some defendants, rural areas are constantly battling the opioid crisis and other drug problems. Crimes involving drugs, like simple possession, are usually considered "lower level." Without bringing people struggling with addiction to court, it becomes hard to mandate treatment for them. (It also demands we ask why courts have had to be so active in addressing an issue that is better handled by healthcare professionals).

These issues demand solutions rooted in programs that revolve around health care and highlights how the justice system is attempting to fill a role it was never meant to, and failing to do so. The system, which continues to evolve to meet the demands of justice of large urban areas, has not contemplated the unique needs of the rural community. We need to reevaluate the way the criminal justice system is structured and operates in rural America and make some radical changes.