County to seek funds for public defenders

COEUR d'ALENE — Kootenai County officials have requested more than $300,000 in state funding to help pay its public defenders.

This year, the Idaho state legislature approved $5.4 million in funding for public defense offices, which are currently only funded at the county level. Kootenai County Public Defender John Adams told The Press Friday that county officials have applied for $320,344 in grant funding, which equals 15 percent of the department's overall budget and is the maximum allotment available.

"Our office is inadequately funded," Adams said. "We agree with the state legislature, who has adopted this law, on that."

Most of the grant funding offered by the state, about $4.3 million will go to counties such as Kootenai to help offset the costs of complying to standards of defense for people who cannot afford legal representation. The rest of the funding will be used for personnel costs, operating expenditures, extraordinary litigation and setting state public defense standards.

The approved grant funds come one year after the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho sued to state under the premise that Idaho officials have known for years that the state's public defense system prevented those accused of crimes from obtaining adequate legal representation. Stating that the lawsuit violated the separation of powers between governmental branches, a judge dismissed the lawsuit in January of 2016.

However, Idaho lawmakers still allocated additional funds toward improving how the state provides legal representation to those who could not afford it otherwise.

Benewah County is the only county that did not pursue the additional funding.

On Friday, Benewah County Public Defender Clayton Andersen declined to comment when asked why the county declined to pursue the grant and whether his office had a need for additional funding.

Benewah County Commissioner Phil Lampert, who has been a commissioner for six years, told The Press Friday that commissioners looked at the county's budget, and determined there was enough funding for the public defender's office. The county, Lampert added, only has one public defender and three conflict attorneys.

"Unless we have a real emergency or something, we don't go over budget on it," Lampert said. "We will probably look at the budget again next year and, if it's available, decide if we need it or not."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.