In a recent commentary published in The Chronicle, the Lewis County commissioners warned that our public defense system is “outdated, unsafe and unjust,” cautioning the public that courts face “impossible choices” between delaying justice or releasing defendants onto the streets.
While the commissioners claim that public safety is threatened by the potential release of inmates, the reality inside the Lewis County court system paints a very different, and far more concerning, picture.
Defendants are not being released.
Instead of letting individuals go, the county relies on a high-volume pipeline of rapid plea agreements and involuntary mental health competency stays under RCW 10.77 to keep citizens detained without ever bringing their cases to a jury trial. These procedural stays are often ordered over a defendant’s explicit objection, neutralizing the defense function into an administrative plea-mill.
As detailed in the recent research and case file “Constitutional Rights Analysis: State v. Ettner,” this system systematically strips away constitutional freedoms by initiating unrequested competency proceedings against non-consenting clients to bypass trials and suppress exculpatory evidence.
The commissioners publicly attribute this crisis to state underfunding and a lack of available defense attorneys. Yet, county accounting records show that Lewis County spent over $2.1 million on public defense in 2025, with nearly a quarter of that entire budget — $496,040 — going to a single contract defense attorney.
Public court dockets show individual contract defenders carrying up to 200 active cases at once, drastically exceeding the state caseload limits that were designed to protect a citizen’s constitutional right to a fair defense.
Behind the scenes, the structure itself reveals deep institutional conflicts that prioritize municipal risk mitigation over justice. The system is not broken; it is operating exactly as designed. The machinery driving this deprivation of freedom operates on the following unconstitutional framework:
• Risk management control: Under Lewis County Code Chapter 2.40, public defense contracts and billing vouchers are administered directly by the county’s Department of Risk Management — the exact agency tasked with minimizing the county’s financial liability. The officials responsible for mitigating civil liability are simultaneously tasked with evaluating if defense attorneys are providing effective assistance.
• The prosecutor’s conflict: Lewis County Prosecuting Attorney Jonathan Meyer signs these public defense contracts “as to form” while simultaneously serving as the county’s designated corporate risk representative on the Washington Counties Risk Pool (WCRP) board, which provides liability indemnification for the county.
• Financial incentives to bypass trials: Private defense attorney contracts contain mandatory indemnification clauses requiring attorneys to hold the county harmless, alongside financial bonus structures that incentivize diverting clients into administrative specialty courts rather than litigating trials.
• Weaponizing the state backlog: By tactically deploying RCW 10.77 stays to manage high-liability cases, Lewis County intentionally exacerbates the state hospital backlog, misusing state forensic psychiatric resources to warehouse legally competent defendants.
If Lewis County is truly concerned with public safety, constitutional rights and fiscal accountability, officials should stop deflecting blame onto state funding.
It is time to address the real issue: a closed, conflict-ridden system that avoids trials, overburdens defense counsel, and keeps citizens unconstitutionally detained while blaming the state for a crisis created right here at home.
Chase Nathaniel Ettner
Chehali
