Defense attorneys expressed dismay over comments made by Multnomah County’s new district attorney Nathan Vasquez, calling his remarks “offensive” and “inaccurate.”
During an interview with OPB published Monday, his first official day on the job, Vasquez offered a sharp critique of many of the county’s public defenders.
“I call it the work stoppage,” Vasquez said. “I hear it referred to as a defense attorney crisis. I don’t accept that. I don’t agree with that terminology. I see it much differently.”
In the days since, many in the county’s criminal defense bar have expressed concern and anger over Vasquez’s remarks.
“It was offensive and ignorant,” said Carl Macpherson, executive director of Metropolitan Public Defender, one of two nonprofit indigent defense providers in Multnomah County. He said the statements Vasquez made about public defenders were “wholly inaccurate” and nothing more than “political rhetoric.”
Stacey Reding, executive director of Metropolitan Defenders Inc., said “calling it a work stoppage is insulting.”
Reding said she’s had high turnover in her office. New attorneys often have less experience, she said, and can’t take as many cases as the lawyers they’re replacing.
“Our district attorney’s office could take actions that would help with the public defense crisis,” Reding said. “In Multnomah County, our attorneys prepare a lot of cases for trial that turn into dismissals on the eve of trial. If our district attorney’s office could identify those cases that are dismissals much earlier in the process and dismiss them, that would save many hours of defense attorney time that we could then turn around and focus on taking new cases.”
Jonathan Sarre, administrator of the Portland Defense Consortium, a group of 16 public defense attorneys in the county, said Vasquez’s remarks “blames the public defense community for some things that are beyond our control.”
He said Vasquez’s frustration should be with the state and less with individual attorneys or entities doing the work. “I think where some would say work stoppage, others would say we’re just acting ethically,” Sarre said.
Ethically, defense attorneys should not take more cases than they’re able to. If they do, they risk violating the constitutional rights of defendants by not being able to provide adequate representation.
“Mr. Vasquez is trying to say, ‘Hey, y’all need to take more cases.’ And that’s definitely a way out of a crisis, everybody kind of shoulders an extra load,” Sarre said. “I suppose the danger there is nobody wants to act unethically. Nobody wants to behave unethically. Nobody wants to practice law that way.”
At the same time, questions remain about if the state’s approach to addressing the issue is making enough of a difference.
The Multnomah County Justice Center in downtown Portland, which houses a jail and four courtrooms, as well as Portland Police Bureau' central precinct.
Amanda Troxler / OPB
Oregon has failed to provide lawyers for thousands of people charged with crimes statewide, effectively violating legal protections for defendants under both the U.S. and Oregon constitutions.
It’s a situation that, at least on the surface, has not improved. Oregon lawmakers have attempted to address the problem, boosting funds by $100 million in 2023 and adding more defense attorneys who are employed by the state.
As of Friday, more than 3,700 people in Oregon charged with a crime did not have a court-appointed defense attorney. Without a defense attorney, prosecutors like Vasquez cannot hold people accountable for crimes through guilty verdicts and fulfill a promise to prioritize victims.
“I want individuals to have proper representation,” Vasquez said. “I want victims' cases to get prosecuted. We need a functioning system.”