By Tom Jarvis
As New Hampshire continues to grapple with long-standing concerns in its indigent defense system, the final installment of the NHBA Indigent Defense Crisis series looks westward to Oregon – and, to a lesser extent, to Maine – for a stark reminder of what can happen when those concerns go unresolved.
Over the past five years, Oregon’s public defense system has deteriorated into a full-scale constitutional crisis, leaving thousands of criminal defendants without legal representation. Maine, though not in outright collapse, has faced serious strain after years of relying on a patchwork of underpaid private attorneys. Both states now stand as cautionary examples – offering urgent lessons for New Hampshire as it weighs how to prevent the same structural cracks from widening.
Oregon by the Numbers
As of January 2025, the Oregon Public Defense Commission (OPDC) reported that more than 4,000 individuals charged with crimes were without legal representation. Nearly 200 of them were sitting in jail – some for months – without a public defender assigned to their case. More than 700 had waited longer than six months for an attorney, despite facing felony charges. These figures reflect what many experts and officials now describe as a breakdown of Oregon’s constitutional obligations.
What is unfolding in Oregon has become one of the most severe indigent defense crises in modern American history, underscoring just how quickly a system can fail when foundational issues are left unresolved.
“It’s an embarrassment,” says Stacey Reding, the executive director of Multnomah Defenders, Inc., a nonprofit public defense office based in Portland. “We’ve had chronically underfunded public defense for decades, and we simply don’t have enough lawyers to meet the demand created by the cases our prosecutors are bringing.”
The Oregon Model
Oregon’s public defense system is unique among states. It is centrally administered by the OPDC, formerly part of the judicial branch but moved under executive control in 2023. Until very recently, Oregon did not employ any state public defenders directly. Instead, all indigent defense was handled through contracts with nonprofit defense firms or consortia of private attorneys.
A 2018 report by the Sixth Amendment Center (6AC) described Oregon’s system as so structurally flawed that it “could not guarantee the provision of effective representation,” citing flat-fee contracts and a lack of oversight as key problems (6AC, The Right to Counsel in Oregon, 2018).
“The Sixth Amendment Center noted the flat fee as unconstitutional because it pits providers’ financial interests against their clients’ interests,” says Reding. “They also flagged the concern that there was insufficient oversight to ensure quality representation from those contracting with the state. We’ve adopted some of those recommendations in Oregon, but we still have a way to go to adopt them all.”
The American Bar Association later echoed those concerns in a 2022 report, adding that Oregon had just 31 percent of the public defenders it needed to meet demand statewide (ABA Oregon Project, January 2022).
Tensions over how to fix these systemic flaws boiled over in August 2022, when Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Martha Walters fired all nine members of the Public Defense Services Commission after it deadlocked on whether to remove then-executive director Stephen Singer. Justice Walters said the commission had become ineffective and needed to be reconstituted to move the system forward. A reformed commission was seated shortly after, and within days voted to terminate Singer. The episode drew national attention and underscored the depth of dysfunction within Oregon’s public defense leadership. (Lauren Dake, Oregon Public Broadcasting, Aug. 15, 2022; Julia Silverman, Oregon Capital Chronicle, Aug. 18, 2022).
From Warning Signs to Breakdown
While Oregon’s challenges predate the pandemic, COVID-19 intensified the crisis. Court closures in 2020 led to a surge in delayed cases. When proceedings resumed in 2021, the system faced an unsustainable influx of cases. That year, the OPDC implemented caseload limits to prevent burnout among attorneys – a measure that unintentionally forced many public defenders to begin declining new cases, leading to a growing number of defendants without counsel.
By mid-2022, Oregon judges were regularly confronted with unrepresented defendants. Courts in Multnomah County began dismissing cases due to the state’s failure to assign counsel. According to Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), nearly 300 criminal cases were dismissed in that county alone by late 2022.
Others were released from jail despite serious charges. One defendant in Douglas County, accused of raping a minor, waited 22 months for an attorney before being released due to a lack of legal representation (OPB, Feb. 5, 2025).
In November 2022, US District Chief Judge Michael McShane ruled that Oregon’s failure to provide counsel violated the Constitution. In a 2024 enforcement order, he wrote: “It’s a complete tragedy and nobody seems to have an answer. Literally, we suspended the Constitution when it comes to this group.”
Judge McShane ordered the state to release any in-custody defendant who had not been assigned a public defender within seven days of their initial court appearance.
In May 2024, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the order in Betschart v. State of Oregon, describing the state’s public defense system as a “Sixth Amendment nightmare.”
In an April 2025 op-ed in the Portland Tribune, retired Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Henry Kantor said that during his time on the bench, he frequently saw defendants appear in court without counsel, which, he wrote, “undermined the very purpose of our adversarial system.” He argued that Oregon’s most viable solution is to build and retain a strong public defense workforce, writing, “adding and retaining well-trained public defenders – instead of overloading the ones we have – is the only sustainable solution to our public defense crisis.”
Public Safety at Risk
Oregon prosecutors have expressed concerns about public safety, as criminal cases are being delayed or dismissed entirely due to the shortage of public defenders.
In November 2022, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt told OPB that victims were left waiting for justice – or denied it altogether – as some cases expired past the statute of limitations, and even serious offenders were released without conditions because prosecutors never got a chance to argue otherwise.
“Every day that this crisis persists presents an urgent and continuing threat to public safety,” he said.
Oregon District Attorneys Association Executive Director Bryan Brock agrees, adding that judges continue to dismiss cases in 2025.
“Public safety is still at risk here,” he says. “Cases are being dismissed without consequences, and that encourages rising crime because you’re not holding people accountable. Justice delayed is one thing – justice never seen is another. Victims are left without resolution, and without supervision some defendants reoffend. We’ve seen it happen.”
Brock says they’ve reduced the number of people in custody without counsel but that it has come at the cost of people who are not in custody.
“We’re kicking that can further down the road,” he says. “We have over 3,000 cases where they’ve been approved for court-appointed attorneys but are waiting to find an attorney who has the capacity to take the case. Some have been waiting over a year.”
The State’s Response
Oregon has attempted several reforms, with mixed results. In 2023, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 337, which established a trial-level division of state-employed public defenders for the first time, ended flat-fee contracts for consortia lawyers, transitioned oversight of the OPDC from the judicial to executive branch, and provided significant emergency funding and compensation increases for public defenders.
As of early 2025, the new state trial division has hired only 20 attorneys. The OPDC had hoped to employ 474 public defenders over six years. Many of those first hires were pulled from existing nonprofit defender offices, leading to further gaps elsewhere in the system (Zane Sparling, The Oregonian, June 24, 2024).
The OPDC’s hourly-pay program for private contractors, intended to supplement full-time defenders, has also drawn criticism. While it helped assign some cases, it reportedly encouraged some lawyers to leave full-time positions and take fewer hourly cases, reducing overall capacity (Carl MacPherson, OPB, Apr. 11, 2025).
In April 2025, Governor Tina Kotek fired OPDC Director Jessica Kampfe, citing a lack of progress, and appointed Ken Sanchagrin, former head of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, as interim director.
“It is unacceptable that more than 4,000 defendants in Oregon do not have attorneys,” Governor Kotek said in a statement to OPB.
The 2025-27 state budget proposal includes a 20 percent increase for the OPDC, bringing its total to $720 million.
A Near-Collapse in Maine
Maine, like Oregon, has faced an ongoing shortage of indigent defense attorneys. Maine was the last state in the country to establish a public defender office, previously relying solely on private attorneys appointed by the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services (MCILS).
The commission faced sharp criticism in 2020 and 2021 after reports surfaced of widespread quality and accountability issues. A February 2021 report by the Maine Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability warned that MCILS “cannot ensure effective representation” and highlighted deficiencies in case tracking, training, and oversight.
In response, Maine approved a five-attorney Rural Defender Unit in late 2022 to serve areas struggling to find lawyers, with the idea that attorneys would travel from more populated regions to rural parts of the state, according to Maine Commission on Public Defense Services Executive Director James Billings. However, by the time the program was launched, the attorney shortage had become a statewide issue.
In 2023, Maine began opening permanent public defender offices, starting with Augusta. The Legislature approved funding for four additional offices in 2024, bringing the total to five, mostly serving rural counties.
Billings notes that the goal now is to eventually expand to full statewide coverage.
“Maine waited far too long to employ their own public defenders,” says Billings. “We are behind the eight-ball trying to play catch up and roll out these offices as expeditiously and efficiently as we can, while still recruiting qualified attorneys to do the work. There’s a serious backlog in Maine’s courts right now, with over 6,000 more cases pending now than there were in 2019 – including 3,000 more felonies and roughly 3,000 more misdemeanors. So, there’s a significant increase – about 65 percent more cases and more felonies than there were in 2019.”
In March 2025, Kennebec County Superior Court Judge Michaela Murphy ruled that Maine was violating the constitutional rights of indigent defendants by failing to provide timely legal representation. She ordered that, starting in April, any defendant who had been incarcerated for more than 14 days without an assigned attorney must be released from jail.
Additionally, charges – excluding those for murder – would be dismissed without prejudice for individuals who had waited more than 60 days without counsel. Judge Murphy emphasized the state’s obligation to uphold the Sixth Amendment, asserting that the public has a significant interest in a fair and functional criminal justice system.
As of late April, the order faces legal challenges. Billings notes that appeals are pending and that there is uncertainty about whether the trial court has jurisdiction to carry out the habeas corpus hearings outlined in Judge Murphy’s ruling – specifically those involving the release of jailed defendants without counsel or the dismissal of cases after prolonged delays.
A Tragic Example
One high-profile case underscoring the consequences of Maine’s public defense crisis is that of Leein Hinkley. In June 2024, after spending nearly three weeks in jail without an assigned attorney, Hinkley was released on reduced bail – a decision made by Judge Sarah Churchill, who cited violations of his Sixth Amendment rights due to the state’s failure to provide counsel. Three days later, Hinkley engaged in a violent confrontation in Auburn, during which he fired at police, set multiple fires, and ultimately was shot and killed by law enforcement. Human remains were later discovered in one of the burned homes. The incident drew national attention and renewed scrutiny of Maine’s defense infrastructure.
“Mr. Hinkley’s case is a symptom of the crisis,” says Billings. “This is what happens when a state does not meet its constitutional obligations. Eventually, if judges are left with little or no choice, they can either violate the Constitution by processing a criminal case without a lawyer, hold them indefinitely in custody without one, or fashion some form of release. The judge did everything in her power to ensure public safety.”
New Hampshire Public Defender Board President Michael Iacopino echoes the sentiment, saying, “That tragedy is directly attributable to the failure of Maine to provide counsel.”
What This Means for New Hampshire
So far, New Hampshire has avoided the acute breakdown seen in Oregon and the near-collapse reported in Maine. But experts have long warned that its system contains many of the same vulnerabilities – several of which have been explored throughout this series.
In 2022, a 6AC report warned that if New Hampshire does not reform its oversight and funding mechanisms, “the state risks the same outcomes observed in Oregon and other states with contractor-based models” (6AC, The Right to Counsel in New Hampshire, October 2022).
“If our public defense system, and particularly the New Hampshire Public Defender, is not adequately funded, they won’t be able to provide the necessary legal services to indigent defendants, caseloads will rise, and we will continue to lose lawyers and have difficulty in hiring new ones,” says Iacopino. “So, we definitely could face a similar situation to those in Oregon and Maine.”
Lessons for New Hampshire
Oregon’s public defender crisis shows what happens when a system is allowed to function at unsustainable capacity for too long. Maine, although making progress, remains in a precarious state with insufficient attorney coverage in rural regions. New Hampshire can learn from both states and avoid reaching the same tipping point.
“It’s not as though we haven’t been on the brink in New Hampshire – after the pandemic, we had a hold list with over 1,000 people,” says Iacopino, adding that the current budget is inadequate to even maintain the existing level of services provided by the Public Defender program. “If we don’t fund the program properly, we will face the same situations as in Oregon and Maine, and we will be unable to provide lawyers for people who need them the most.”
Whether that warning is heeded – or whether New Hampshire follows the same trajectory – is a question for lawmakers, legal professionals, and the public to consider before the indigent defense crisis becomes impossible to ignore.