At the Multnomah County Courthouse, the fourth floor elevator
door opened to a scene one doesn’t witness every day: A man with a
lolling jaw and the vacant stare of heavy meds walked past a group of
three sharp-suited district attorneys in frantic discussion, I think,
about one of their divorces. Next to them an obese teenage mother on a
hardwood bench bounced her baby up and down, up and down, in a futile
effort to stop it from crying. In all, 50 disparate, bewildered people
were gathered in this hallway on a recent Friday morning.
It’s a public defender’s job to shepherd these folks through the
criminal justice system, giving each and every one of them the best
quality legal advice while simultaneously managing a caseload dwarfing
that of a DMV desk clerk’s.
“That level of chaos is about typical,” said Supervising Public
Defender Liz Wakefield, as she calmly led me through the throng toward
a pre-trial conference room. “Much of my work is about
multi-tasking.”
Inside the pre-trial conference room, three district
attorneys—whose starting salaries are in excess of $50,000, paid
by the county—sat on one side of a table covered in case file
boxes. Opposite them sat three public defenders like
Wakefield—whose average starting salary is around $40,000, paid
by the state. An industrial 1970s coffee machine sat defeated and
unplugged in the corner as the two sides negotiated in the bluntest of
terms about the merits and disadvantages of every single case in the
boxes, one by one.
From conferencing, we returned to the throng outside the elevators
to seek out Wakefield’s clients. Of five, three had shown up. The
first, a middle-aged white man in an Oregon Ducks cap, had his case
postponed while the state looked for more witnesses. The second, an
African American gentleman also aged about 50, needed reminding by
Wakefield to head down to Walgreens and refill his medication before
returning to court for his pre-trial date.
“We aren’t social workers,” Wakefield told me, after talking with
him on the stairs. “But they’re our clientele. If someone isn’t taking
their medication, they’re not going to be able to function in
court.”
Her next client was out of state, caring for his dying mother.
Wakefield waited for 10 minutes outside the criminal procedure
courtroom in order to plead with a judge not to issue a bench warrant.
She explained she’d had “good contact” with the man and expected him to
return to Oregon soon. Her request was granted and his case was set
over.
Wakefield then found her next client being defended on the sixth
floor by another lawyer, on a different charge. The woman was
undergoing drug treatment and had been banned from driving, but didn’t
seem very concerned about beating the DUI charge for which Wakefield
was defending her—the likely consequence of which was more drug
treatment and another driving ban.
“This is important,” Wakefield told her. It’s unclear if her advice
sank in.
Wakefield’s last client never showed up, and will have a bench
warrant on her record from now on. Not all cases can be won—but
today is over. On Monday, Wakefield will return to a brand-new hallway
filled with people who have nowhere else to turn.