Public defenders are first responders

Public defenders have long known that our everyday fight for basic fairness and justice is really a fight for public health. The danger of our punishment approach is clearer today than ever. We must act responsibly to protect not only those we represent, but those who work in courts, jails, prisons, and our entire community.

Public defenders are critical first responders to this crisis working around the clock to diligently and proactively defend everyone in Spokane. To stem the spread of this virus, we must drastically reduce the number of people in jail and limit new admissions to exceptional circumstances. This is a matter of life and death. We need to take lessons learned from this evaluation process and apply it to future determinations of who we lock up in our jail.

Yes, there are people charged with offenses that are deemed to be violent, but those in jail pretrial are presumed innocent. People living in poverty and jailed solely because they are unable to afford to pay a few hundred or thousand dollars to buy their freedom. People serving short sentences on low level offenses, and others jailed solely because of a technical probation violation, not criminal conduct.

The criminal legal system-courts is bloated while our public health systems are scarce. We must significantly reduce our reliance on the criminal justice system to solve societal ills. We have decades of hindsight and now a pandemic to show us the short-sightedness and failure of our ‘justice’ system.

Tom Krzyminski

Spokane