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Imagine you are responsible for providing legal representation for indigent people in your state (the public defender's office). Seven years ago, a request for additional funding to meet increased case load was vetoed. Your budget was cut in 2015 and now the governor's office is recommending further cuts. Making things worse is the fact that the number of cases has increased 12%. What would you do?
The Director of the Missouri Public Defender System came up with a novel approach to help meet the increased caseload burden and sent a letter to the Governor (PDF) compelling him to work cases.
Additional reporting here, here, and here.
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Missouri Governor Fails to Fund Public Defender's Office so They Compel him to Work Cases
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Law stands mute in the midst of arms.
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @11:12AM
I'd guess the cases can't simply be dismissed, because the defendants *do* have a lawyer. It's just that each of those lawyers is also working for 100+ other people at the same time. And since the state government refused to set a cap, each of those lawyers can always be made to take on another client.
So long as the public defender's office has lawyers on staff, this will continue. A strike or mass resignation is the only way this will come to a head any time soon.