Kansas’s System of Public Defense
The Kansas State Board of Indigents’ Defense provides defense counsel for people who are charged with felonies and cannot afford an attorney. We do so in one of two ways: our public defender system or our assigned counsel program.
The impact that our agency’s services have on Kansas’s criminal legal system is huge. On average, 85% of adults charged with felonies in Kansas qualify for our services. In fiscal year 2020, BIDS handled a grand total of 26,237 cases. Given these statistics, the relative health of the Kansas public defense system has a substantial impact on the ability of our criminal courts to function.
A strong public defense system not only protects our clients’ legal rights and satisfies the constitutional requirements of the Sixth Amendment, it also protects Kansas citizens’ liberties as a whole, increases the effectiveness of our court system, and is essential to maintaining the legitimacy of the entire judicial process.
This organizational flow chart shows the structure of our public defense system. Budgeting and payment for the separate assigned counsel program is routed through the BIDS Administrative Office, but each assigned attorney is effectively an independent contractor with BIDS. Scroll down further to learn more about the public defender system and assigned counsel program.
Our Public Defender System
BIDS currently administers 18 regional public defender offices, and expects to open two more in 2024. Those offices include fourteen noncapital trial level regional defender offices, a trial-level capital defender office, a statewide appellate defender office, two capital appellate offices, and one capital habeas office.
Public defenders and public defense staff are state employees, working directly for BIDS and subject to BIDS internal oversight and quality control. When sufficiently staffed, public defender offices have traditionally been the most effective and fiscally efficient way to provide counsel to our clients. Public defender offices also have other advantages, such as the ability to accrue institutional knowledge and advocate collectively against injustice in our criminal legal system.
But there are not enough public defender offices to cover the needs of all poor Kansans who are accused of crimes. As a result, BIDS also administers an assigned private counsel program to fill in those gaps.
Our Assigned Counsel Program
The assigned counsel program consists of two groups: contract counsel and non-contract counsel.
Contract counsel are typically private attorneys or firms that contract with BIDS to accept appointed cases at rates reduced from market value.
Non-contract counsel are private attorneys who meet established criteria and voluntarily serve on appointments panels in each judicial district. They are appointed to cases directly by district court judges who oversee the appointment panels in their respective jurisdiction. The statutory rate for these attorneys is currently $80 per hour, although they are being paid $120 an hour through the end of fiscal year 2023 based on a special budget priviso.
Assigned counsel are asked to serve where our public defenders are unable to handle a case due to conflicts of interest or caseload. They are also employed in judicial districts that do not have a public defender office. Because assigned counsel are private attorneys, their performance and caseloads are not directly supervised by BIDS, but the BIDS accounting department does audit and facilitate their payment.