King County is muscling into a high-stakes courtroom fight over who should pay to defend people who cannot afford a lawyer, joining a long-running lawsuit that puts Washington state’s public defense system under a microscope.
This week, the King County Department of Public Defense said it is formally signing onto a case that started with a small group of mostly rural counties and the statewide counties association. With the region’s largest public-defense office now in the mix, county leaders hope their budget woes and political clout will ramp up pressure on both settlement talks and lawmakers in Olympia.
King County Joins The Counties’ Lawsuit
According to The Seattle Times, King County’s Department of Public Defense has formally joined an existing lawsuit filed in 2023 by Lincoln, Pacific and Yakima counties, along with the Washington State Association of Counties.
Department Director Matt Sanders told the paper the county wants to be “in the room” for any settlement negotiations and suggested that, when it comes to big funding shifts, litigation is sometimes the only thing that gets lawmakers’ attention.
What The Lawsuit Says
The lawsuit claims the state is falling down on its constitutional duty to ensure adequate funding for trial-level public defense. It asks the court to either order reliable, ongoing state support for those services or require the state to take over providing them directly…