The abrupt departure of an Astoria defense attorney this summer left dozens of criminal defendants without an attorney, plunging Clatsop County into Oregon’s public defender crisis.

The state has scrambled for the past few years to address a shortage of public defenders and meet the constitutional requirement under the Sixth Amendment to provide criminal defendants with attorneys.

Clatsop County does not have a public defenders’ office and instead uses a consortium contract with private defense attorneys.

According to a crisis plan prepared by the Circuit Court, Clatsop County had two unrepresented criminal defendants in July. James von Boeckmann, a longtime defense attorney, unexpectedly left the consortium in late July. The crisis plan reported that he had over 70 active cases, including 13 defendants in custody.

The county has been able to find attorneys for all defendants in custody. As of Friday morning, though, 61 criminal defendants lacked counsel.

“Initially, we looked like we were going to be OK,” said Judge Dawn McIntosh, the presiding judge of the Circuit Court. “But then he literally just walked away, and that was when it hit the fan here in Clatsop County. What we’re doing right now is triage work, you know, who are the people we’ve got to get lawyers for the quickest?

“What we really don’t want is a situation where we have somebody in custody on a rape case or attempted murder case or something really serious, and I get a federal judge telling me I have to let them out of jail because they don’t have a lawyer.”

McIntosh filed a complaint against von Boeckmann with the Oregon State Bar. The judge said court staff reached out to the attorney via phone, email and text with no response. “While I certainly understand that some personal crises of whatever sort may be at play,” the judge wrote in the complaint, “his absolute failure to communicate with the court and his fellow attorneys and his complete abandonment of vulnerable clients is inexcusable.”

The Astorian was unable to reach von Boeckmann for comment.

Kris Kaino, a defense attorney involved with the consortium, declined to publicly discuss the departure.

‘Embarrassment’

In August, U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane described the public defender crisis in Oregon as an “embarrassment” and ordered Washington County to release indigent criminal defendants who did not have attorneys appointed to them 10 days after their initial court appearances.

This month, the Rogue Valley Times reported that Fidel Cassino-DuCloux, Oregon’s federal public defender, asked the judge to release defendants in Washington County and dismiss criminal charges against them if attorneys were not provided within 48 hours of arraignment.

State lawmakers this year approved a $96 million package to address the shortage of public defenders. Legislation to implement the package contained a requirement that presiding judges prepare crisis plans by Sept. 1.

“We have several experienced, committed and hardworking attorneys who, until recently, were able to provide quality representation to all of our indigent criminal defendants despite the chaos at (Office of Public Defense Services),” the crisis plan for Clatsop County Circuit Court stated.

The crisis plan urged the Office of Public Defense Services to preserve consortium contracts with private defense attorneys, particularly in rural areas, instead of moving to public defenders’ offices.

The plan also recommended that defense attorneys be allowed to take cases over monthly caseload restrictions and yearly weighted caseload limits.

The caseload restrictions, according to the crisis plan, complicated the county’s ability to assign attorneys for unrepresented defendants this summer.

“We don’t want to give them more than they can ethically handle,” McIntosh said. “But I can tell you, of the attorneys that I know here who are on the contract, there is not one of them that wouldn’t tell me, ‘Judge, I am overwhelmed today, I have too many cases on my plate, I can’t take another case this week.’”

‘Difficult to recruit’

Ideas for recruiting new defense attorneys to the region include housing stipends, student loan relief and waiving contract restrictions for consortium candidates. McIntosh and Judge Kirk Wintermute agreed that uncertainty regarding job stability, combined with the high cost of housing, has created a difficult situation for recruitment.

“It’s always been difficult to recruit here, because it’s a small community, it’s away from the valley, the cost of living is high, those kinds of things,” said Wintermute, a former defense attorney in the consortium. “But it’s gotten so much worse in the last few years because OPDS is so unstable.”

A statewide shift to public defenders’ offices could create employment instability, especially during the transition.

“I’m going to come here, buy a house, move my family out here and I don’t even know if I’m going to be out of a job in a year or two years?” Wintermute said. “So now people are like, ‘Why would I want to move out there?’ Eventually, it could work out, but it’ll be a painful six or seven years of transition.”

The timing of von Boeckmann’s departure this summer placed a strain on the consortium in part because another defense attorney had left in the spring.

“I think the thing that’s really important to know is that this is not a Clatsop County problem. This is an OPDS problem,” said Julie Vredeveld, the trial court administrator. “And we are working like crazy with our community partners to mitigate the impacts of the problem on our community.

“So we’re doing a lot of things to make sure that this doesn’t get really, really bad, but there’s nothing more that we can do to solve the root problem.”