Progress On the Public Defender Office Expansion Project

by Meryl Carver-Allmond, BIDS Training Director

As you may have heard, BIDS is in the process of opening several new public defender offices across the state. Here are a few commonly asked questions about the stages of that process, as well as an update on what stage each of our future new offices is currently at.

How does BIDS decide when and where to start a new public defender office?

Any interested party can ask the Board to open a new public defender office, but oftentimes a request starts with community members as they realize the potential benefits of centralized, institutional representation of indigent defendants in their area or from judges in a given judicial district, as they assess the defense needs in their area.

What are the steps of the process?

Once a need for a public defender office in a particular area has been expressed, the Board gathers information about what conditions are like for indigent defendants in that area. That collection gathering can include any relevant details, but it always includes statistics like the number of cases from the area, the number of attorneys on the current panel, and those attorneys’ experience in representing indigent defendants, and the relative costs of public defense services in that area.

Once that information gathering is completed, the Board votes on whether to continue to the next step of the process, which is to hold a public hearing.

Assuming the Board decides to hold a hearing, members of the public, local legal community, and any other stakeholders are given notice and an opportunity to share their thoughts on whether opening a public defender office is a good idea. 

After that hearing, the Board once again votes on whether to go forward with establishment of a public defender office.

Again, assuming that the Board decides to proceed, the next step is to add the new office to BIDS annual budget request and persuade the Legislature to provide funding for the new office.

If the Legislature funds the office, the BIDS Administrative Office can then begin leasing office space, hiring a chief, and taking care of the other logistical details necessary to physically open the office.

If the Legislature chooses not to fund the request, BIDS can renew the request in the next year’s budget, attempt to open the office from existing funds, or seek alternative sources of funding.

Where are new offices planned and what stage are they at in this process?

The Board has currently gone through the public hearing process and voted to establish three new offices over the course of the last two years – one in the 7th Judicial District (Douglas County), one in the 29th Judicial District (Wyandotte County), and one in the 11th Judicial District (Crawford, Cherokee, and Labette Counties in Southeast Kansas).

The office in Douglas County was included in last year’s budget request, but was not funded by the Legislature. BIDS is currently working on the logistics of potentially opening that office from existing resources. Once opened, that office will include approximately 11 attorneys and staff.

The offices in Wyandotte County and Southeast Kansas are included in this year’s budget request which will be considered by the Governor and the Legislature during the 2023 legislative session.  If funded and opened, those offices will include approximately 19 and 11 attorneys and staff, respectively.

Keep watching this space for news as we continue working towards getting these new offices opened.