Arkansas Public Defender Commission Executive Director Gregg Parrish asks the Arkansas Legislative Council for $1.25 million in state funds on Friday, August 23, 2024. (Screenshot/Arkansas Legislature)
Arkansas lawmakers directed $1.25 million Friday to the state Public Defender Commission to support processing a backlog of more than 5,000 cases due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The commission would have had to lay off attorneys immediately without the money, executive director Gregg Parrish told a panel of the Arkansas Legislative Council on Monday.
The full council greenlit the funding on the condition that Parrish report to the committee monthly how many employees the commission has, how much it costs to pay them and how much progress the public defenders have made on the backlogged cases. ALC co-chair Rep. Jeff Wardlaw, R-Hermitage, expressed frustration with the funding request Monday and suggested the monthly reports Friday.
On Monday, the Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review subcommittee declined to take action on the request after members expressed concerns that the commission might not have done enough with the $4.5 million in federal funds it received two years ago to address the case backlog.
Thousands of cases piled up between March 2020 and June 2021 because there were no in-person court proceedings, Parrish told the American Rescue Plan Act Steering Committee in August 2022. The committee has since been dissolved, and the money granted Friday will come from the State Central Services Fund.
The $4.5 million from the American Rescue Plan Act was meant to fund up to 45 part-time public defender positions. The commission capped the hiring at 37 positions so as not to run out of money sooner, Parrish said, and it has 32 public defenders at present with one about to resign.
Parrish also said he would not replace any attorneys who resign.
“If we’re granted these funds, whatever employees I lose, that money will be used to at least extend, as much as possible, those who remain on the payroll,” he said.
A federal court ruling issued Wednesday is set to increase public defenders’ workloads, Parrish added.
In 2022, two Benton County Jail inmates sued Parrish and Benton County District Judge A.J. Anglin, alleging they were denied their constitutional right to counsel at bail hearings. U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered that public defenders must represent defendants in Anglin’s court who cannot afford their own attorneys.
Not only will public defenders have to fit Anglin’s bail hearings into their busy schedules, Parrish said, but judges in other areas of the state now expect public defenders to show up at their bail hearings. Narrowly applying Brooks’ order to only one judge’s court could lead to another lawsuit, he said.
“You’re going to run into a quagmire that someone can’t be there,” he said. “…I know we can’t cover all these. It’s basically impossible.”
The Legislative Council approved the $1.25 million with no dissent.
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