The average number of cases handled by public defenders in Kentucky remains above recommended maximum workloads, leaving public defenders to handle hundreds of cases each year.

That workload has stretched public defenders to the limit, officials say, and severely hampers the criminal justice system.

Additional funding from the state during the 2006 legislative session did help to lower the average caseload from 468.2 per defender in 2006 to 436.3 in 2007, according to Department of Public Advocacy statistics. But a 2005 DPA report recommended that caseloads should never exceed 400 new cases per lawyer per year.

Attorneys in the Bowling Green office have the 11th highest average workload of any office in the state at 421.3 for this year, according to DPA figures. That’s a bit better than in 2006, when the office handled an average of 433 cases.

The office did receive a new attorney through a grant program from the University of Kentucky, said Renee Tuck, directing attorney for the Bowling Green office; if it hadn’t, each public defender in the Bowling Green office would handle 468 cases, she said.

“That is a number I feel would be near impossible to serve properly,” Tuck said. “As it is now, we have the 11th highest caseload in the state, and we have had two new family court divisions and a new district court to serve. This stretches our manpower to the limits.”

New family courts have been created in Warren, Allen and Simpson counties, and a new district court began in the last 12 months in Warren County, she said.

Unfortunately, the grant funding an additional attorney expires in 2010, Kentucky Public Advocate Ernie Lewis said.

“We’re going to go before the legislature and request that they continue that program,” he said.

The two attorneys assigned to Warren County district court handle about 800 misdemeanor cases in a year, while each of the five felony attorneys average around 300 cases, Tuck said.

“Because circuit court cases are looking at long prison sentences, district court often gets the short end of the stick,” she said. “It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.”

In its first year, the Glasgow trial office had the lowest regional average at 340.8 cases per public defender.

The Bowling Green trial office covers Warren, Allen, Simpson, Edmonson and Butler counties, while Glasgow’s covers Barren, Monroe, Metcalfe and Hart counties; Hart County cases have only recently been added to Glasgow’s workload, however, and Lewis expects that addition to add to the workload.

Yet while the overall workloads are getting slightly lighter, they’re still well above national recommendations, Lewis said.

The first step toward fixing the problem, he said, is requesting the 2008 General Assembly fund the DPA at a higher level - enough to push caseloads below an average of 400 per attorney statewide.

“For the first time, we’re going to use figures that show where our caseloads will be,” he said. “In the past, we’ve told the legislature what our caseloads (have been), and they’ve funded that.”

That method predictably left the department constantly trying to catch up, as cases throughout the state have increased by an average of more than 5 percent a year in the last decade.

The caseload is especially heavy at the state’s two busiest offices: The Lexington office is responsible for 651.4 cases per lawyer per year, while in Louisville, each public defender handled 539.5 cases in 2007.

The DPA just took over the Lexington operation from a nonprofit that had been responsible for the office for more than 40 years, Lewis said. That office is now down to 13 lawyers and in the process of cleaning up because cases weren’t being recorded correctly.

“I’m going to request emergency funding to take care of that crisis in Lexington,” he said.

For the 2007 fiscal year, total caseloads for area counties were Warren County, 3,657; Allen County, 226; Barren County, 1,128; Butler County, 128; Edmonson County, 94; Hart County, 486; Logan County, 586; and Simpson County, 236. Warren County had the third-highest number of circuit court cases in Kentucky.

The American Council of Chief Defenders recommends that public defender caseloads not exceed 150 felonies, 400 non-traffic misdemeanors, 200 juvenile cases or 200 mental health cases each year.

“These caseload limits reflect the maximum caseloads for full-time defense attorneys, practicing with adequate support staff, who are providing representation in case of average complexity in each case type specified,” according to the ACCD report.

In most cases, because the legal process is more complex than it has been in the past, those numbers should be reduced, according to the report.

“I am convinced that the continual increase in ... caseloads without adequate funding will ultimately put the criminal justice system at risk,” Lewis said.

In 2000, the DPA handled 97,818 cases, while in the 2007 fiscal year the department has handled more than 148,000, he said.

“I believe a balanced criminal justice system must include equal resources on both sides. Kentucky citizens expect prosecutors, law enforcement, courts, and public defenders to be funded equally to in order to enhance public safety as well as protect the right of our citizens,” Lewis said. “Yet DPA resources continue to fall behind as caseloads rise more quickly than funding.”