A New Vision for the Public Defender’s Office

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By Eric Wilson-Edge

Puget Sound EnergyYou’re late – maybe to work or to an appointment. You decide to speed. Pretty soon you’re going 10 over the limit. Flashing red and blue lights appear in your rearview mirror. You try to explain. You’ve never been pulled over. The officer hands you a ticket – it’s expensive. Time passes. The ticket is buried in your backseat. You know you have to pay but the cost will put a significant dent in your budget. You get pulled over again – broken taillight. The officer runs your information. You’re arrested. The judge suspends your license. Your home is in a rural area with little public transportation. Your family doesn’t live nearby and your friends don’t have cars. If you decide to drive and get caught then you could go to jail.

Sounds farfetched – and maybe it us for most of us. However, there are some neighbors for which this is a reality. “It’s staggering how much injustice the justice system can produce,” says Daryl Rodrigues, the new director of the Thurston County Office of Assigned Counsel.

olympia public defender
Daryl Rodrigues, the new Director of the Thurston County Office of Assigned Counsel, shares his vision for Holistic Defense.

Rodrigues has a warm personality. He’s soft spoken but firm in his beliefs. He wants to try a different approach. Rodrigues is an advocate for Holistic Defense. This model was pioneered by a group called The Bronx Defenders. “Holistic Defense, at its roots, tries to separate the facts that underlie a person from the specific conduct which caused the criminal charges,” says Rodrigues.

This method acknowledges circumstance and context. Life isn’t always fair. Some people lack a solid family structure or quality education. This doesn’t excuse the behavior, but it does try to stop it from happening again. “If we don’t look at the underlying reasons then we’re not staying faithful to the goal we are trying to accomplish,” says Rodrigues.

Understanding why typically means conducting a thorough interview. Sounds basic, but in the crowded world of public defense it’s not always a given. Rodrigues and his team of 17 attorneys and eight office staff are generally handling multiple cases at once.

Connecting a defendant to services is a critical step in the process. A social worker can be helpful in locating financial counseling or securing space in a drug treatment facility. “The more services you can provide as soon as a person is charged with a crime the better able they are to address the issues that drove them there,” says Rodrigues.

Flexibility is not a concept most people feel comfortable with when discussing the law. People are either guilty or innocent. There is no gray area. Rodrigues is testing this belief. He’s already begun using Holistic Defense in some cases. He tells me about a client who got in trouble for missing a drug treatment appointment. Rodrigues spent two hours interviewing his client.  He found the missed sessions were an anomaly and not the pattern. The defendant ended up not going to jail.

Rodrigues concedes that Holistic Defense isn’t right for everyone. “There are people for who jails and prisons are built.”  However, this doesn’t mean alternative methods can’t be explored. As Rodriguez puts it, “what is the goal of the justice system? Is there an approach that gives the community a better value for their money?”

You decide to drive with a suspended license. You’re caught and arrested again. You might go to jail.  You could be labeled a criminal and snowball or, if Rodrigues has his way, you could be given help.  Rodrigues is working with multiple agencies to develop a model for relicensing like the one used in Spokane. There would be no penalties or collections charges.  You’d have a path to getting back on track. There’s one drawback. In Spokane a minimum payment is needed. “If someone comes and they have five dollars take it. The worst thing you can say is ‘come back when you have the other twenty.’ The processing fee is still cheaper than jailing someone for a day,” summarizes Rodrigues.

 

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