ACLU of Maine reaches settlement in lawsuit over public defenders

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine has reached a settlement over inequities in the state’s public defender system with the agency’s commitment to create rules governing the path forward and to press for more funding and additional public defender offices.

The settlement of the lawsuit builds on previous successes in opening the first public defender office, including increasing hourly wages for private attorneys serving indigent clients and the hiring of a staffer to oversee attorney training and supervision.

“There is no quick fix or single solution to the current and future challenges to Maine’s indigent criminal defense system. The proposed settlement provides meaningful short and long-term reforms in the State’s provision of indigent legal services,” the document said.

Neither the ACLU of Maine nor the state attorney general’s office had comment Wednesday on the settlement, dated Aug. 21. The lawsuit was filed in March 2022.

A judge previously granted class status to the lawsuit against the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services that cited a failure to train, supervise and adequately fund a system to ensure the constitutional right to effective counsel for Mainers.

Before the hiring of five public defenders last year and an additional 10 public defenders included in this year’s state budget, Maine was the only state without a public defender’s office for people who cannot afford to hire a lawyer.

The state had relied solely on private attorneys who were reimbursed by the state to handle such cases, and the number of lawyers willing to take court-appointed cases has been declining in recent years.

All states are required to provide an attorney to criminal defendants who are unable to afford their own lawyer. A scathing report in 2019 outlined significant shortcomings in Maine’s system, including lax oversight of the billing practices by the private attorneys.