Weber County’s revamped public defender office garners kudos from state
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- Part of the team of attorneys and others in the Weber Public Defender Group, pictured Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023. From left, Nick Babilis, Mark Augustine, Daniel Lancaster, Dylan O’Gorman-Hoyt, Corey Doolan, Mary Anne Ellis, Jim Retallick and Ron Ball. Retallick heads the office.
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- Jim Retallick, director of the Weber Public Defender Group, pictured in his office on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023. His office provides public defense for those going through the court system who lack funds.
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- Part of the team of attorneys and others in the Weber Public Defender Group, pictured Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023. From left, Nick Babilis, Mark Augustine, Daniel Lancaster, Dylan O’Gorman-Hoyt, Corey Doolan, Mary Anne Ellis, Jim Retallick, Randy Kennard, Ron Ball and Nathan Carroll. Retallick heads the office.
OGDEN — Weber County’s relatively new public defender program is getting high marks from the state agency that’s tasked with safeguarding and strengthening legal defense services for those without resources.
Some say it could be a model for public defense programs in other Utah counties.
“There are so many benefits that come with having a designated public defender office, measurable benefits of having those attorneys working full time,” Matthew Barraza, executive director of the Utah Indigent Defense Commission, told Weber County commissioners on Tuesday. “They don’t have to worry about chasing down clients to pay the bills, pay the rent. They can just focus on their clients.”
Weber County launched its revamped public defender office, the Weber Public Defender Group, in February 2022, aiming in part to bolster the representation available to the poorest people winding through the legal system. Before, the county, like most others in the state, contracted with individual lawyers or law firms to provide public defense services. The contract work was typically complementary to other legal work of the lawyers.
The new office, part of the county government apparatus, changes that, creating a staff of full-time attorneys who can dedicate themselves fully to defense of the indigent, though the services of contract attorneys are also tapped.
“There’s a support system here for them,” said Jim Retallick, director of the Weber Public Defender Group. Significantly, the revamped system has reduced the caseload of individual public defenders, he continued, “which basically means you have more time to spend on each individual.”
Notably, the office also provides forensic social work services to help point clients to other programs that may help them steer clear of the legal system going forward. The services also help the public defenders in providing legal advocacy for their clients.
“We are relentlessly focused on reducing recidivism,” said Daniel Lancaster, who leads the team in the Weber County office aiding in the forensic social work efforts.
Under the old system — the norm in most Utah counties — Retallick said public defenders engaged in “legal triage,” picking and choosing “those cases you would dedicate most time to.” Forensic social work services weren’t provided under the old system.
Now, with the Weber County system a little more than a year and a half old, Barraza and Adam Trupp, assistant director of the Utah Indigent Defense Commission, traveled to Ogden to pat local officials on the back for their efforts. “Kudos to you. We want to recognize that and congratulate that,” Barraza said.
Trupp said a benefit of the Weber County model is that it makes it easier to keep tabs on the effectiveness of the public defense system, the caseload of individual public defenders. “Everybody can see what’s going on,” he said.
Part of the aim of traveling from Salt Lake City to Ogden, he said, is to draw attention to the Weber County program and help make the case for more funding for the Utah Indigent Defense Commission. The office provides grants to individual counties to help cover the cost of public defender services and will be covering 23% of the $4.2 million budget of the Weber Public Defender Group for 2023-2024, Barraza said.
Weber County Commissioner Gage Froerer broached the notion of lobbying state lawmakers on the attributes of the Weber Public Defender Group “because we feel that this has been a great step forward for Weber County and really a model for the state of Utah as we go forward,” he said.
There’s a cost to bolstering the investment in public defense, he said, but it can pay off by helping those caught up in the legal system turn their lives around.
“If this is a true model we want through the state then we probably need to encourage our representatives to put a little more money into this,” Froerer said. “Because at the end of the day, I believe it saves us money. I believe it saves our jails, it saves us those cases of people that are lost, that fall off the work environment.”
A statement to Weber County officials from Barraza, Trupp and Lorene Kamalu, a Davis County commissioner and chair of the Indigent Defense Commission, noted the benefits of a full-time public defender office. “Providing such high-quality representation results in better outcomes for their clients, improves their likelihood of being successful on probation and reduces recidivism. This in turn results in more stability for their families and the community,” it reads.