Pennsylvania has an insufficient number of public defenders in nearly every county, according to a new report from a University of Pennsylvania law professor, hampering the state’s ability to fulfill its Constitutional obligation to provide adequate representation for criminal defendants who can’t afford a lawyer.

Paul Heaton, the report’s author, analyzed nearly 1 million criminal court dockets covering a six-year period and concluded that there should be about 1,200 public defenders employed in county courthouses across the state. But there are only about 850 public defenders currently working, Heaton found — a shortfall of about 30%. And some form of deficit exists nearly everywhere, Heaton found, with just six of the state’s 66 public defenders’ offices employing enough lawyers to adequately cover a typical annual caseload.

Montgomery, Bucks, and Delaware Counties are among those with notable staffing shortages, the report said, although many of the most disproportionately under-resourced counties are in central and northern Pennsylvania.

“I expected in general there to be a shortfall,” Heaton said in an interview. “One of the big questions I had, though, is whether we’d find that basically everywhere.”

The report’s release this week came as budget discussions are underway in legislative halls across Pennsylvania, and as agencies — including defenders’ offices — seek to lobby officials for funding.

Last year, state lawmakers for the first time allocated $7.5 million for indigent defense rather than leaving counties to cover the costs — making Pennsylvania the 49th state to provide some form of statewide money to public defenders. Gov. Josh Shapiro called the longstanding lack of state dollars a “shameful distinction,” and he has said that he will seek to raise the allocation to $10 million in the budget for the next fiscal year.

Still, advocates have long contended that such an investment is not enough. The Defender Association of Philadelphia — the largest indigent defense organization in the state, with about 230 attorneys — has a budget of more than $60 million, about 90% of which is provided by City Council.

Keisha Hudson, the city’s chief defender, said Philadelphia received about $144,000 from the state’s new funding pool, which the office is looking into using for attorney training. She said she’s unaware of any chief defender in the state saying they received enough money to hire additional attorneys, and she plans to ask City Council for an additional $15 million for her office’s budget in the next fiscal year.

“We have a need here for increased attorney staffing,” she said.

How did the report reach its conclusions?

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