Daily Reformer: Public defenders are swamped

By Max Nesterak | Deputy Editor

By Max Nesterak

Minnesota public defenders are struggling under heavy caseloads to fulfill their constitutional obligation to represent every person accused of a crime who can’t afford a lawyer, according to a report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor released on Tuesday.

For the entire five-year period analyzed in the evaluation, average caseloads have exceeded state standards meant to ensure attorneys can meet their ethical duty to provide “prompt, competent, and diligent representation.”

What’s more, the Office of the Legislative Auditor found the governing body overseeing public defense still hasn’t updated the state’s caseload standards despite being advised by a similar audit in 2010 that the standards were outdated. The standards, which were last updated in 1995, don’t take into account the significant increase in material that defense attorneys need to review, such as bodyworn camera footage.

By Nancy Marie Spears

The U.S. Supreme Court will not take up the most recent attempt to dismantle the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, according to the docket posted Monday, leaving in place a Minnesota court’s ruling.

The case involves Red Lake Nation twins who were placed in a temporary foster placement four years ago. The white couple who cared for the siblings for more than a year sought to regain custody after the children were placed with relatives. Under ICWA, tribal children’s kin and community members are prioritized for foster care placements over non-Native caregivers.

Mark Fiddler, who served as co-counsel for the foster couple and is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, vowed to continue his yearslong effort to overturn the federal law, which he says “creates a separate and unequal system for Indian children.”

Indigenous rights groups praised the high court’s rejection of the plaintiff’s petition, calling ICWA the “gold standard in child welfare policy.”

We have two commentaries this morning that aim to dispel fearmongering about the security of our elections. 

The first, by author and former Star Tribune editor Dave Hage, examines the evidence on noncitizen voting: It’s exceedingly rare. The Trump administration announced to much fanfare that a grand jury had indicted 10 Minnesotans on charges of falsely claiming American citizenship to vote in recent elections. The fact that they only charged 10 people after going through great lengths to uncover noncitizen voting shows that our system works, Hage writes. 

In the second commentary, a quartet of voting enthusiasts writes that we can trust our local election officials. After all, they’re our neighbors. They are urging local officials to sign a pledge that they will abide by the U.S. Constitution and local election laws, that they will refuse to comply with unlawful executive orders and they will faithfully play their roles to certify and seat the rightfully elected winners.  

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