Thurston County District Court had a much busier year in 2024 than in 2023, county public defense officials showed.
Patrick O’Connor, county public defense director, presented a state of the department update to the Thurston County Board of Commissioners during a Wednesday, Feb. 12, board work session.
The district court saw a 154% increase in the number of clients it served in 2024 compared to 2023, with 2,459 total assignments last year compared to 1,591 the previous year. These assignments include adult misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor clients. The court assigns clients to the public defense’s office for representation if they qualify, and it takes those assignments and determines whether its attorneys can represent them internally or assign them to a contract attorney.
“That’s almost two full trial attorney workload differences than the previous year,” O’Connor said. “It’s hard for me to predict that we would see that kind of increase, but that’s the nature of our work.”
Over 87% of total district court assignments were done in-house, and only 72 assignments were reassigned due to department attrition, compared to 110 the year prior.
“We have been impacted by attrition, just like every other business in America, and it’s very impactful when we lose an attorney to the private sector or another public sector because that attorney generally has a lot of clients on their caseload,” O’Connor said. “We have dozens and dozens of clients to reassign to other lawyers because they’re entitled to representation immediately.”
Thurston County Commissioners Tye Menser and Rachel Grant inquired about why the number of assignments is trending upward so dramatically. They asked O’Connor if it is related to the Blake Decision, which was a Washington state Supreme Court decision that found the law criminalizing drug possession to be unconstitutional.
“We’ve seen minimal numbers of cases. Pre-Blake, when they were felony possession charges and the number of clients that we saw appointed, we had averaged about 500 clients a year when possession cases were charged as felonies,” O’Connor said. “I can circle back with the data that we’ve seen since the Blake fix and the legislation that makes it a gross misdemeanor. Precipitous, precipitous decline in the number.”
While district court saw a dramatic uptick in assignments in 2024, the juvenile and superior courts saw a reduced workload compared to 2023. The juvenile court recorded 261 total assignments in 2024 compared to 339 in 2023, and the superior court took 1,703 total felony assignments in 2024 in contrast to 1,987 in 2023.
O’Connor also shared the public defense department’s strategic objectives for 2025, including fostering the department’s environment and individual development, enhancing operational systems, and preparing for new standards if the state supreme court adopts them. He added that the public defense team is excited to move into Building 5 in the courthouse complex as it receives a renovation.
“I can’t emphasize how exciting this is for our office. They were excited that I could give them that assurance, so thank you for your commitment to making this happen this year,” O’Connor told the commissioners. “It’s my job as a director to provide them with an adequate professional work environment, and they have taken one for the county team for a long time.”
