A Pacifica litigation team recently helped secure an important appellate victory for a coalition of Washington counties in a constitutional challenge involving the way the State funds indigent criminal defense.
The Washington State Association of Counties (WSAC) and Lincoln, Pacific, and Yakima Counties (the Counties), sued the State of Washington in 2023, alleging that the State’s funding scheme is denying indigent criminal defendants their right to court-appointed counsel, a right which is guaranteed under both the U.S. and Washington State constitutions.
Currently, the State delegates trial court indigent defense obligations almost completely to Washington’s counties. However, the Counties’ complaint alleges the State has repeatedly failed to provide counties with stable, dependable, and regular state funding for indigent defense, and has also limited Washington counties’ authority to raise tax revenue to cover the cost of this obligation.
The decision from the Washington State Court of Appeals, Division II, reverses a Thurston County Superior Court’s earlier decision to dismiss the Counties’ lawsuit on the grounds the Counties lacked standing—the Counties, the superior court decided, could not assert constitutional claims for rights guaranteed to individuals.
The Court of Appeals held that Pacifica’s clients have standing to bring their case, because the Counties’ interests and those of indigent defendants in Washington are intertwined. “Indeed,” the appeals court wrote in its opinion, “although the right to counsel belongs to individual defendants, the right is integral to our legal system, which counties are required to administer.” The Court also noted that the Counties “have a direct interest in the constitutionality and fairness of the criminal legal system, and in that way their interests are closely aligned with those of indigent defendants.”
The Court of Appeal’s decision sets the stage for the Counties to present the merits of their case, which asks the superior court to declare the State’s indigent defense funding system unconstitutional and require that the State provide Washington’s counties with stable, dependable, and regular state funding sufficient to enable them to provide constitutionally adequate trial court indigent defense services.
The Pacifica litigation team representing the Counties is led by Paul Lawrence and includes Ian Rogers, Sarah Washburn, and Christopher Sanders, with assistance from Sydney Henderson.
