Thurston's Public Defense office bares pandemic challenges, plans

The Thurston County Public Defense disclosed their challenges over the past year amid the pandemic as they laid out new strategies and initiatives for 2022.

Public Defense Director Patrick O'Connor said the pandemic's impact on the department's workload is "hard to calculate," during the Board of County Commissioners work session on Wednesday, March 30. 

"The pandemic affects backlogs on the trials,"  O'Connor said. "I'll be frank; it's not easy to calculate the impacts of the pandemic."

O'Connor reported that they have around 11% of the budget for the year 2021 still unused because of the lack of jury trials, halting the usual spending on professional and expert services.

However, O'Connor commented that his team is optimistic that jury trials will continue to open and be available in the county as COVID-19 restriction eases.

"I would say that if we continue to have jury trials open and available, we will see an increase in our professional service actuals and our panel attorney actuals," O'Connor said.

However, O'Connor said the Public Defense staff is adjusting well to the new hybrid setup, with some staff reporting to the office in-person while others work virtually through "teleworking."

"I do think there is a culture shift throughout the pandemic. We've heavily relied upon teleworking due to the nature of the virus," O'Connor said,

He mentioned that teleworking paves the way for a new work-life balance for the staff.

"I think it improves staff overall happiness and employment if they can have those options, again, in moderation and depending on the position," he said.

Juvenile Cases

Commissioner Carolina Mejia asked about the state of juvenile cases in the county, commenting that the pandemic has affected kids in serious ways.

In response, Juvenile & Civil Unit Robyn Martyn reported that the numbers on juvenile cases have "continued to be low since everything initially shut down in early 2020."

Martyn said referrals from schools and resource officers of schools appear to be down due to the classes mainly being online. However, Martyn noted that they cater to "more serious cases in sex offenses." 

"The cases that we do get are more serious. And so our office has been representing a much higher number than usual of juvenile sex offenses, which is unfortunate," Martyn said, the department now has two juvenile defense attorneys in the house that focus on these cases.

Thurston County declared ​​April as Child Abuse Prevention Month to raise awareness about child abuse and neglect prevention.

During the proclamation ceremony, Maternal and Child Health Manager Gretchen Thaller said the pandemic affected the state of child abuse in the county, stating that cases may have increased and they may be underreported. 

"We know that families have been under tremendous stress during the pandemic," Thaller said. "We believe that child abuse was underreported in the early days of the pandemic when we were all in lockdown… and we suspect that the rate may have increased."

The BOCC encouraged the public to wear blue this Friday, April 1, dubbing it "Go Blue Day," to build awareness about child abuse and neglect prevention and inspire change by focusing on community activities and public policies that prioritize prevention.