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AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Legislature passed a bill that would provide funding for the public defender’s office and additional staff to improve the state’s inadequate indigent justice system.
Hours after its passage on March 21, Gov. Janet Mills signed the bill, announcing her efforts to “improve the delivery of legal services to low-income individuals and ensure their constitutional right to counseling.” He said he would move forward.
“The right to a lawyer is something I hold very dear and have personally provided on behalf of low-income clients many times during my legal career,” Mills said. he said, noting that funding for the new position was already included in the supplemental budget bill. .
Until Maine hired its first five public defenders in late 2022, it relied solely on private attorneys to represent low-income defendants.
More people have been added since the state opened its first public defender’s office in November, but Maine still relies primarily on private attorneys, according to the Maine Poverty Legal Services Commission. Jim Billings, executive director of, told Congress during a budget hearing. At the beginning of this session.
“For decades, we have relied almost exclusively on these private attorneys, and at this time we see a need to diversify our system of service delivery and introduce a statewide public defender system,” Billings said. There is,” he said.
After hearing Billings’ concerns, the Judiciary Committee asked the Budget Committee to remove some indigent legal services projects from the special appropriations table and instead immediately fund them as an emergency measure. The Appropriations Committee removed the measure from its agenda Thursday morning, and the House and Senate quickly passed a revised version of LD653 as an emergency measure, securing the necessary two-thirds vote.
The Senate passed the bill 33-0 and the House 118-0.
Specifically, the bill would create two new public defender offices, one to serve Aroostook County and the other to serve Penobscot and Piscataquis counties. It also added a public service coordinator to serve existing offices in Kennebec County and several new positions in the commission’s central office to help create more new offices and train new public defenders. do.
These additions do not require any additional funding in this or next fiscal year, but the bill is projected to cost approximately $94,500 in 2025-2026 and $192,000 in next fiscal year.
In addition to funding these expansions, this bill would change the name of the Maine Poverty Legal Services Commission to the Maine Public Commission to more clearly explain the organization’s mission and functions to the public. It is planned to be changed to the Defense Services Board.
Before the bill passed the Senate, sponsor Sen. Lisa Keim (R-Oxford) said the name change would not only be clearer for the public, but also for future lawmakers like her. Ta. She said she had to Google it when she was first elected. Committee functions due to the common name.
Keim said he generally opposes bigger government, but was happy to see the expansion of government created by this bill. That’s needed in the field of public defense, she said.
In the House, Rep. Matt Moonen (D-Portland), co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, introduced her bill to the committee as a way to solve the long-standing problem of a lack of legal representation across the state. He expressed his gratitude to Mr. Keim for letting him use the facility. The Judiciary Committee unanimously voted in favor of the amended bill on March 18th.
In March 2022, the ACLU of Maine filed a lawsuit alleging the state is failing to provide adequate legal representation to people who cannot afford one. Despite extensive settlement negotiations, the case will be returned to court due to widespread problems with the system.
As of late February, nearly 400 people in Maine were awaiting the appointment of a lawyer, and about a quarter of them were in prison.
After Thursday’s vote, the ACLU of Maine confirmed it would continue the lawsuit, but praised the Legislature’s passage of LD653. Zach Heiden, ALCU’s chief legal counsel, said the current crisis is not limited to counties that receive new public defender positions through this bill. .
“The current system denies countless people their Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel,” Heiden said. “We call on Governor Mills to sign LD 653 into law and for Congress to continue to build on it by funding public defender offices in every prosecutorial district. .”
This article has been updated to include Governor Mills’ signing of the bill.
Annmarie Hilton contributed to this report.
The Maine Morning Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by a coalition of grants and donors as a 501c(3) public charity. The Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. If you have any questions, please contact editor Lauren McCauley. [email protected]. Follow Maine Morning Star on Facebook twitter.
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