St. Clair County public defender’s office ‘collapsing.’ Here’s why, chief defender says.

The St. Clair County public defender’s office is “collapsing,” according to the official in charge.

Chief Public Defender Cathy MacElroy has started the process of asking the 20th Judicial Circuit court to allow her office to withdraw from cases due to lack of funds and lack of attorneys. She insists that she has no choice.

“It is not ethically possible for us to provide adequate representation to clients with the amount of cases we have with only five full-time lawyers,” MacElroy said in a recent BND interview.

MacElroy said attorneys are leaving the public defender’s office because the pay is too low and the caseload is too high, and that the situation is going to get worse without action by the St. Clair County Board.

Here’s a Q&A with MacElroy on the issues involved:

What steps have you taken to address the caseload?

MacElroy said she filed motions on Nov. 29 to withdraw from seven cases that were assigned to her office on Nov. 25, noting that this was a lower-than-usual number because of the holidays.

MacElroy said she plans to continue filing such motions. Her office was assigned 31 more cases this week.

“We are asking essentially that the court allow us to withdraw from these cases because of the volume in our office is extremely high,” she said.

The public defender’s office budget was about $700,000 last year, half of what is allocated in similar-sized counties such as Madison, Sangamon and Champaign, according to MacElroy.

“Our county has a lot more serious cases than those counties,” she said. “ They do not have the kind of activity.

”Consistently, East St. Louis has topped the charts on murder per capita in the country. Our budget doesn’t reflect the level of crime that we are defending cases on. We have a lot more murders, armed robberies and armed violence than in counties that have double the budgets.”

MacElroy said she has repeatedly asked the St. Clair County Board for more money.

“At best, we might get a minimal pay increase,” she said. “This year I think my budget went up approximately 2%.”

Why are public defenders important?

The U.S. Constitution’s Sixth Amendment guarantees that people accused of crimes have access to legal counsel. Courts assign public defenders to cases when defendants can’t afford private attorneys.

MacElroy said it’s important to adequately fund public defender’s offices to ensure justice under the American system, which presumes people are innocent until proven guilty.

“We don’t want innocent people being sent to prison,” she said. “Because of that, they are entitled constitutionally to lawyers to make sure the state is held to the law, that they follow the law, that they meet their burden of proof.”

MacElroy said she’s not implying that St. Clair County state’s attorneys are intentionally charging innocent people or otherwise trying to do wrong, but they can make mistakes in gathering facts or handling evidence.

“Sometimes they get the wrong idea,” she said. “They might get too compassionate about something, and they might miss parts of facts or evidence that they should see and realize that this needs to come to somebody’s attention.

“In order to make sure they are doing their jobs, we are here as a checking system to make sure they follow the law, that they follow it to a T, that they don’t violate people’s constitutional rights and that they are held to their burden of proof under the law.”

What’s the main problem?

The American Bar Association recommends that attorneys not represent defendants on more than 150 felony cases a year, according to MacElroy.

“We are almost at triple that right now,” she said. “This year, when I finished our year-end report, my lawyers were at about 350 cases for the year. But then I had another attorney leave. When that happened, it caused their caseload to go even higher, so some of them are now in 400 to 450 for their caseloads.”

MacElroy said the heavy caseloads don’t give public defenders enough time to confer with defendants, read documents, file appropriate motions or negotiate with prosecutors.

“We just physically do not have enough time to handle this volume of cases,” she said. “We simply can not take anymore.”

MacElroy cited Illinois Supreme Court Rules of Professional Conduct, which require attorneys to communicate with clients, convey offers, negotiate with prosecutors, be knowledgeable about cases and handle them as quickly as possible.

“It is our position that if we take any more cases, we will definitely breach those duties that we owe to our clients,” she said.

“We are asking that the court appoint private counsel to these individuals to represent them so they wouldn’t be without a lawyer. It would just not be the public defender’s office.”

Why are caseloads so heavy?

Typically, the pubic defender’s office is assigned 20 to 30 cases a week at the preliminary hearing stage, according to MacElroy.

“I’m only talking about felony cases right now,” she said. “In addition to that, we handle juvenile-defense cases, people abuse and neglect cases, some traffic cases and some misdemeanor cases.”

Felony cases range from murder to Class 4 retail theft or possession of a controlled substance.

MacElroy said caseloads and dockets have doubled due to 2018 changes in Illinois law, allowing people charged with non-violent or lower-level offenses to be released on recognizance bonds.

”When that started happening, basically because they did not have bonds posted, they did not retain (private) lawyers,” she said. “So our office would be appointed in those cases.”

The public defender’s office now is handling 1,500 felony cases and 500 juvenile abuse, neglect or delinquency cases, as well as misdemeanor cases, according to MacElroy.

Another factor in level of caseloads is that courts are trying to catch up after falling behind in 2020 and 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic halted jury trials and slowed other processes.

Why are attorneys leaving?

MacElroy said the St. Clair County public defender’s office should have at least seven attorneys on staff, but she’s down to five because she lost one last December and another who went to work for the Illinois attorney general’s office last month.

MacElroy said another attorney is leaving this week to go into private practice, and no one is applying for open positions because salaries aren’t competitive with those in private practice, state’s attorneys offices and even Land of Lincoln Legal Aid, which handles civil cases for poor people.

“I can offer $48,000 a year,” she said. “It’s not enough for even a young lawyer at this point. Our lawyers come out of school and obviously they have large debt from their student loans. Debt forgiveness would require them to stay with my office for 10 years.”

The salaries don’t allow public defenders to get married, have children, buy houses or even pay bills, according to MacElroy.

“It’s not enough for them to have a middle-class lifestyle,” she said. “... A lot of my lawyers have held out as long as possible, hoping our budget would increase. But other positions paid so much more that they couldn’t turn it down.”

What is your role as office chief?

MacElroy joined the public defender’s office in 2006 as a full-time attorney, right out of law school. She left for private practice in 2014, then returned a year later on a part-time basis.

MacElroy became chief public defender in 2019. She said it’s a part-time position in St. Clair County for budgetary reasons, noting that she would have to be paid 90% of what state’s attorneys earn if she were full time.

The State of Illinois would reimburse the county for two-thirds of that salary, according to MacElroy. She now earns $37,000 a year.

Why isn’t the county board helping?

Asked why MacElroy thinks county officials are refusing to adequately fund the public defender’s office, she said she doesn’t know because without it judges have no choice but to appoint private attorneys to represent defendants who can’t afford to pay.

McElroy said the chief judge put in place an administrative order a couple of years ago to address this issue, establishing a panel of private attorneys who would be paid at the rate of $200 an hour with a maximum of $5,000 per case without special permission.

“If you take what what my budget is and the number of cases we handle a year ... We handle a case for about $400,” she said. “There’s no way you can even compare what you would pay private lawyers to what we do everyday. Fiscally, it makes the most sense to fund my office.

“This is something that has to be funded. These are constitutional rights that are guaranteed. The Sixth Amendment says everybody gets a lawyer. The 14th and Fifth Amendments say people have a right to due process.. That means their cases should move efficiently through court.”

How will the SAFE-T Act affect things?

MacElroy said the new SAFE-T Act in Illinois will increase the caseload for her office because public defenders likely will be automatically appointed for hearings to determine if defendants are detained or released without bond and that she doesn’t have enough attorneys to handle it.

MacElroy said she understands the county’s dilemma.

“They are probably looking at the fact the SAFE-T Act is going to result in a reduction of revenue for them because the bond will be posted, and the 10% they have been taking all of these years won’t go to the county anymore,” she said.

“That doesn’t mean these cases won’t exist anymore. That means there will be more cases for us. I know (the county is) in a tough position because they are losing money.

“We shouldn’t treat the criminal system as a stream of revenue for the government. It should be about making sure justice is done, that people are punished and rehabilitated, and it should go from there. It shouldn’t be about trying to make money off the poor.”

The St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department got a big bump in funding prior to the SAFE-T Act going into effect, while the public defender’s office got “nothing,” according to MacElroy.

“That’s why we are moving to withdraw (from cases),” she said. “It’s not ethically possible for us to take this many cases. I took an oath to uphold the Constitution, and if we have this number of cases, we can’t effectively represent this number of people.

“We are at a collapsing point. We were extremely optimistic the County Board would understand our plight and that they would appropriately fund our office. My lawyers have absorbed the increase in caseloads. They’ve actually become more efficient.”

Any attempts to reduce crime will be unsuccessful if the court system doesn’t work properly, according to MacElroy.

“You can fund state’s attorneys and prosecutors as much as you want in an attempt to minimize crime, but if you don’t fund the defense side, then those cases cannot move through the system,” she said. “As we all know, justice delayed is justice denied. Nobody gets any justice that way.”