Maine judge will start releasing people from jail, won't wait for ruling
May 13—A Maine judge says she will not wait for the state supreme court to rule on an appeal before she moves forward with releasing people from jail and dropping charges against those who have unconstitutionally gone too long without a lawyer.
Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy also agreed to declare that the entire state, not just its public defense agency, is at fault for these Sixth Amendment violations, as the American Civil Liberties Union has alleged in its lawsuit.
"[I]t is the State's obligation to provide indigent criminal defendants with representation," Murphy wrote in an order last week. "Or as counsel for the MCPDS defendants put it very early in this litigation: it is the State of Maine that is the 'real party in interest in this matter.'"
Murphy wrote that she plans to resume the process soon. No date was scheduled with the Kennebec County Superior Court, where the case is being heard, as of Tuesday morning.
Murphy first ruled in January that the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services was liable for not providing continuous legal representation to hundreds of poor, criminally charged Mainers.
She announced in March that she intended to start holding a series of hearings in April to identify and release anyone who has waited more than two weeks without a lawyer. She also planned to dismiss charges against defendants who had waited more than 60 days for a lawyer. Once released, they would still be on strict bail conditions. Any charges dropped could be filed again once a lawyer is available, Murphy said.
Advocates for Maine crime victims said these plans will put at risk the safety of victims whose perpetrators are in jail. The Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence said in January that "victims of crime are bearing the consequences" of the state's constitutional failures.
A lawyer for the state urged Murphy to wait for the Maine Supreme Judicial Court's opinion on more procedural grounds, arguing that Murphy was using the wrong legal procedure for this kind of case. The state also said the habeas process can't legally be applied to felony-level charges.
Murphy, however, disagreed. She said Maine technically doesn't recognize "felonies," and that the criminal code instead using a series of "classes" for sentencing.
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Murphy's hearings will follow the "writ of habeas corpus" process. Habeas cases are typically filed on behalf of individual defendants who say they're being jailed illegally — in this case, the law's application would be unprecedented because it will potentially provide habeas relief to a large, yet-to-be-determined number of people, all at once.
"Where a writ has been granted, the purpose of habeas corpus — to swiftly secure the liberty of a person wrongfully detained — would be defeated if the delays resulting from an appeal could pause the discharge of a wrongfully detained person," Murphy wrote in her most recent order.
The ruling results from a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine first filed against the state's indigent defense system in 2022, which has been amended several times to account for a growing crisis of defendants who are entitled to lawyers, but don't have them.
An emergency law recently took effect, allowing the state to hire more public defenders and judges to appoint more private attorneys to cases that need them. The Maine Commission on Public Defense Services also filed a court-ordered plan in April, laying out how they intend to identify unrepresented defendants and get them lawyers.
"This order shows the court recognizes the urgency of this crisis because no person should be incarcerated or dragged through months of criminal legal proceedings without an attorney," said ACLU of Maine Legal Director Carol Garvan in a statement. "The court's decision underscores the importance of habeas corpus protections, which entitle people to a speedy process to challenge unlawful restraints on their liberty. Any time the state chooses to restrict a person's freedom, it is the state's responsibility to ensure a fair and speedy process. That constitutional requirement cannot be indefinitely put on hold because the state has filed an appeal."
A spokesperson for the Office of the Maine Attorney General, which is representing the state and the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services, said it doesn't comment on pending litigation.
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