Interim King County Department of Public Defense Director Matt Sanders on Caseload Standards and Budgetary Needs by Ashley Nerbovig As the King County Department of Public Defense (DPD) began the project to dramatically lower case loads for its attorneys in the next three years, its longtime director, Anita Khandelwal, resigned from her post at the end of September with very little explanation. King County Executive Director Dow Constantine appointed Matt Sanders, managing attorney at DPD’s associated counsel for the accused division, to replace her.  In his first month as interim director of DPD, Sanders threw himself into coordinating the reduction of caseloads and advocating for increased funding for attorneys so the lowered caseloads don’t result in clients without any representation. Caseloads became an immediate issue for DPD earlier this year, when the Washington State Bar Association’s (WSBA) Governing Board adopted new standards for public defenders, switching from a flat case limit to a weighted case standard, which takes into account how much actual time an attorney spends on a case.  The WSBA based its new standards on a 17-year-long study spanning 17 states to determine how much time an attorney needs to deliver constitutional representation to a client. Because of the way King County set up the DPD, the department automatically adopted the new standards with a three-year phase in cycle.  However, most public defense departments statewide follow the Washington State Supreme Court standards, which is now weighing whether to implement the WSBA’s new caseloads across the state. That’s really not entirely King County DPD’s business, but Sanders is making a fuss in solidarity with other defenders. I sat down to chat with him about his new role at the department and about the chaos that is public defense in Washington right now.     This conversation was edited and condensed for clarity. How’s the new gig? Do you miss Anita? Anita was a giant in the field of public defense. Where we were when she first came on to where we are six years later, it’s just amazing the amount she's been able to build.  Thankfully, since I was the managing attorney for a couple years at ACA [Associated Counsel for the Accused division], I had some experience with some aspects of the job. But there's been something of a learning curve with the proposed budget coming out from the executive last Monday, and the revised caseloads being a statewide topic for discussion. It's kind of an exciting time to step into the role. It's getting a little bit more manageable every day. Are you hoping to secure the top job? I've spent my entire career basically at DPD. I care a lot about this place and its sustainability, and I wouldn't have agreed to be the interim director if I wasn't prepared to be the permanent director.  How'd you guys make out so far in budget talks with King County? I think that the short answer is that we need more full-time employees. There was a pretty significant difference between what we had asked for and what we were given in the proposed budget. One of the challenges that we confront at DPD is communicating the reasons why we need more funding to council members so that they can take it into consideration before finalizing the budget. Do you feel like it's a tough time to be advocating for people charged with crimes? There was that period in 2020, you know, after the wake of George Floyd, where it really felt like we were turning a corner. Unfortunately, it seems like things are kind of returning back to how they were before, and maybe even worse. SPD just signed the biggest contract that they've ever signed with the City.  It's never easy from the public defense perspective, and it's made more challenging this year because we're trying to implement these new caseload standards, and it's never been done anywhere in the country. But, you know, public defenders are fighters, right? We're naturally fighters. We're fighting prosecutors, or sometimes it feels like we're even going against the court. We saw [King County] Presiding Judge Melinda Young, she's the presiding judge at the criminal court, write an open letter to the Seattle Times basically voicing her objections to the caseload standards. Talk about these new standards. What’s happening, when is it happening? There's three phases. Phase one doesn't actually become a mandate until July 2025. We are implementing them early in preparation to work out the kinks that way, when we hit July 2025, we're ready to go. And they’ll make life better for DPD attorneys, hopefully retain them longer? The short answer is yes. The standards are definitely better than what we currently have at DPD. Phase two is really where you're going to start to see the benefit. But they're definitely better.  Under the current standards that the Supreme Court has, you can have 150 felony cases. That's an outrageously high number. At DPD, we never have someone that high. We would never, but in other parts of the state, people are at 150. Under the new standards, the maximum amount of credits is 110, and cases and felonies can be weighted from one to eight. And so even if you get just all one weight of credits, you're still at 110 cases, which is much better than 150. Then, when you consider that a homicide might be seven and these other cases might be four or five, you're going to have a significant dropoff in your caseload, and that will allow folks to actually work their cases. And, you know, have defendants who go to court, go to trial quicker, get their cases resolved quicker. And it just gets better from there because then phase two is 90 credits, and phase three is 47 credits. But earlier you said you need more full-time employees? We need more full-time employees in order to be able to implement phase one of the caseload standards, and with our current allotment in the proposed budget, it puts in jeopardy our ability to fully implement phase one. I think the modeling that was used to sort of decide DPD budget allocation just had flaws in it. There were just things that were not considered in that model. They will obviously improve in different iterations, but the challenge is explaining what was the defect in the model. The model never took into consideration transfer cases. (Transfer cases are basically when a lawyer quits an ongoing case, often because they’re leaving DPD.) On average, it takes 75 percent longer to finish a transfer case. Some cases, like homicides, are two-and-a-half times longer, and the only people who can take those cases are really experienced attorneys. We've lost over 50 experienced attorneys in the last two years. That's over 19 percent attrition. And so you look at those two factors, like all these transfer cases that aren't being accounted for in the model, plus people leaving the work because of the case loads, it creates a situation where we need more funding to hire, hiring laterally during the year. And I can break that down for you. I know, like I've been in the weeds now for basically, like, two weeks, non-stop, but that's essentially the crux of the matter. Can you explain a little more about why that increased time for transfer cases matters? So a person says, ‘This work is too hard for me,’ or ‘I'm going to move,’ or ‘I've taken this job at this other law firm, but this murder case isn't done,’ right? Now we have to give that case to somebody else. That's where the inefficiency and the hidden work isn't captured in the model. The case has to get transferred to somebody, but they can't just pick up where the other person left off, because they have to confirm what work was done, right? So that creates double work all the while the client is sitting in custody, right? And homicide cases can take twice as long to resolve. We were talking earlier about my career, like what I was doing before becoming a supervisor. I was in Kent working on felonies, and I received a homicide case once, it was transferred from a private firm to us. And you know, my co-counsel, Doug Wilson, and I, we had other cases that we had to go to trial first. We worked the case aggressively, but under the circumstances with our other cases, it took two years for that case to get to trial. He was in custody for two years, and after a two-month trial, the jurors acquitted him in two hours.  Imagine that, to be in custody for two years. You have family, kids. We know you have a strong case. We get there as fast as we can. And the jurors acquit you in two hours. My colleagues, Anna Samuel and Michael Schuler, had a case where the client was charged with murder, a Black man. My client was a Black man, too. Their client sat in custody for five years and was acquitted. What we’re talking about is effective assistance of counsel. We have all these cases and we need more attorneys to be able to handle the load to prevent stuff like that from happening. Ok, and what happens if the caseload standards go in and you don't get those additional attorneys? Will we see DPD coming out and saying, “We just don't have someone to cover this case?” I mean, that's what we want to avoid at all costs. None of us come into this work wanting to do that. And I hate to even say that as a threat, but it’s a warning, right? Because it is a numbers game. Everyone's going to be capped at 110 credits. Once an attorney hits that max, they can't get any more cases until maybe the next month. So next month, something drops off, maybe they can take some cases. But once we hit the cap, we hit the cap. My biggest fear is that we'll end up reaching a point where we can't take any more cases, and then folks in jail basically have to wait their turn for an attorney to have some capacity. That's not what we want at all. And I know that's not what the county wants, either. But it's the risk that we run by giving us what we have right now on the proposed budget. King County is already implementing these standards in phases, but the Washington State Supreme Court is still deciding whether to implement these standards statewide? What effect could the Washington State Supreme Court decision have for you guys? That would be disheartening for the state, just because most of the state is experiencing what we're experiencing at DPD, but just far worse. If the Supreme Court isn't adopted, it's going to be hugely problematic for the majority of the state for public defenders, and for them providing defendants with counsel. These other parts of the state are already struggling to find public defenders, and without these standards it's going to make it that much harder, because King County is implementing them. If you're a public defender and you want to stay where you live, because that's where you grew up, but they're not changing these standards for you, then you might have to apply to DPD. You might have to consider that option because we're the only shop in town that is implementing these standards. But! Okanogan County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Teddy Chow told the Washington Supreme Court that cutting public defender caseloads could result in prosecutors filing fewer cases, and then vigilante justice! What’s your response? We're in a crisis when it comes to public defenders nationwide. Experienced public defenders are leaving the field in droves. The task force was commissioned to create these revised caseload standards to make this job more manageable and to keep people who are mission-driven in the work. People want to do the work, they just can't sustain it. They want to have some semblance of work-life balance.  And the revised caseload standards come from a RAND study that looked at all these different states over 17 years, and came up with these recommendations, saying, given how difficult these cases are nowadays, with body cams and social media and cell phones, these new standards represent what a public defender should be expected to do now. Reducing caseloads is the best tool we have to try to sort of stem the tide of this exodus.  We're in a crisis. If we do nothing, it's going to become a complete catastrophe. If we don't do it, it's just going to get worse and worse and worse. People will have an opportunity to submit public comments to the Washington State Supreme Court up until October 31. What’s important for people to know when submitting their thoughts on this issue? Sometimes people say, “Well, it won't affect me,” or, “If I get in trouble, I'll hire a private attorney,” or something. But think about the kid who plays on your son's little league team. What if he got in trouble for something. Who knows what happened, but wouldn't you want to make sure that he's going to have a good attorney? What if your brother gets popped on something and you don't know if he did or didn't do it, and you just want to make sure that he's going to have an attorney that looks at his case and make sure that he's treated fairly? That is what's at stake when we talk about public defense. In all these different ways, from police accountability to protecting constitutional rights, public defense matters. We’re the ones in the trenches handling the vast majority of these cases, reading the vast majority of these police reports, and seeing what’s happening, and so if you care about that, then write, leave a comment. The Supreme Court wants to hear from you and wants to hear why it matters to you. It’s bigger than public defense. It’s bigger than just the defendant's issue. It’s very much a community issue. I serve the community. I try to explain this to folks. We are here to serve the community in the best way we know how. And if that matters to you, then leave a comment.