A legislative subcommittee hearing on Monday revealed hypocrisy, political pretense and general incompetence as lawmakers grilled Arkansas Public Defender Board Executive Director Greg Parrish about his request for $1.25 million in state funding to continue paying some part-time public defenders.
Parrish told the Arkansas Legislature’s Performance Assessment and Expenditure Review Subcommittee that the money was needed to fund a part-time public defender program created in 2022 to address a backlog of about 5,000 cases created by court closures from March 2020 to June 2021 due to COVID-19.
Parrish said part-time public defenders are only working through a backlog of several thousand cases, and based on figures provided to Parrish by the Office of Court Administration, the backlog remains at “about 5,000 cases.”
Parrish said without the $1.25 million, he would have to start laying off part-time attorneys “by next week.”
Parrish’s request appeared to anger some Republican lawmakers, who were quick to point out that the Legislature approved $4.5 million in 2022 to fund those positions.
Rep. Fran Cavenaugh (R-Walnut Ridge), the subcommittee chairman, seemed particularly upset that the delay was due to the pandemic.
“My concern is, I’m tired of hearing about how COVID stopped everything, how COVID didn’t get the job done, because here we are in 2024, almost 2025, and they’re still using the cases that COVID stopped as an excuse for why COVID didn’t get the job done,” Cavenaugh said, eventually asking Parrish where people charged in the 5,000 or so backlogged cases were being held. (Parrish replied, “It depends on the charges, the nature of the crime, whether they were released on bail, etc.”)
Cavenaugh repeatedly cited the pandemic as an “excuse” and only occasionally stopped to speak at length to take questions.
“At some point we have to take back control of making sure these people’s voices are heard in a timely manner and stop going back and asking for more funding for what’s happened in all these cases that have gone back to COVID-19,” she said. “COVID-19 is behind us. We don’t have any more funding for COVID-19. It’s basically gone.”
(Side note: COVID-19 is not “a thing of the past.” Arkansas has seen an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations since May. More than 200 people were hospitalized in Arkansas in July alone.)
The “COVID funds” Cavenow was referring to are funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, the $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package signed by President Joe Biden in March 2021.
Under ARPA (which every Arkansas senator voted against), Arkansas has received approximately $2.7 billion in federal funding to support measures to help the state recover from the pandemic, including all of the $4.5 million that has been “awarded” (to use Kavenaugh’s term) to the Public Defender Board to date.
Not to be outdone, Rep. Mark Berry (R-Ozark) picked up on Cavenaugh’s anti-COVID rhetoric, at one point calling the backlog “suspect COVID cases” and adding a slew of unfounded allegations about how the funds have been spent so far.
“I agree with Senator Kavenaugh, this COVID problem has to go away,” Berry said, asking if most of the funding went to pay raises for existing public defender staff.
Parrish quickly explained that ARPA funds can only be used to pay the salaries of part-time public defenders who were hired specifically to deal with the COVID-related backlog, and ARPA funds must be specifically designated as funds to be spent on programs directly related to the impacts of the pandemic.
The part-time public defender program was one of them.
Undaunted by the clear-cut answer to his claim, Berry pressed on: “Okay, so until you explain to me what you’ve done with the money and what you plan to do with the $1.25 million that you’re asking for, I’m going to vote against this money,” he said, “because, as I understand it, the majority of the ARPA funds went to employee raises.”
The subcommittee’s reluctance to provide the requested funds now that state money rather than federal ARPA funds is being used reeks of hypocrisy in light of a story in the Sunday Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about the pay raises Executive Branch employees (including the 73 employees who work in Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office) received at the start of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.
Predictably, Griffin tried to preempt the newspaper’s story with a flimsy explanation.
“I have no interest in hiring mediocre staff, and the people of Arkansas deserve the best legal representation on matters that affect the lives of millions of people,” Griffin told the paper. “I strive for excellence, and in my office I strive to hire only the best people to serve the people of Arkansas.”
But if that is indeed Griffin’s goal, one wonders why he hired Lisa Wiedower, formerly known as Lisa Wilkins, who, while an employee of the Arkansas Department of Corrections, lost the state nearly $1 million in civil rights lawsuit judgments and attorney fees and costs. (The fact that Wiedower received a $26,000 pay raise despite being demoted from Assistant Attorney General II to Assistant Attorney General I further raises questions about the sincerity of Griffin’s stated goal.)
Rep. Jeff Wardlaw (R-Hermitage) was also at the interim hearing yesterday. By the time Rep. Wardlaw began questioning Mr. Parrish, Rep. Berry had already asked Mr. Parrish specifically how many part-time public defenders he had hired with ARPA funds, and Sen. Blake Johnson (R-Corning) had literally just asked Mr. Parrish how many cases were backlogged when the initial ARPA funds were approved and how many are backlogged now, and Parrish couldn’t answer the question.
Wardlaw was not fazed by the fact that these questions had already been asked.
“How many lawyers did you hire for $4 million?” he asked Parrish.
After being told the same thing as Berry (that there would be no more than 37 part-time attorneys because filling all 45 authorized positions would quickly deplete funding), Wardlaw asked the same question again: “What is your normal number of attorneys pre-COVID?” he asked. “And exactly how many additional attorneys have you hired with the $4 million that this committee has given you to deal with the COVID-19 backlog?”
Wardlaw received the same answer as before.
He then continued: “What impact has that had on the backlog with the 30 or so additional lawyers that you hired? What improvements have you seen in the backlog as a result of those hires?”
Parrish said the judges he has spoken to believe the program has been effective in reducing the backlog.
“Give me some numbers,” Wardlaw replied. “A few years ago, Congress provided $4 million to clear the backlog. You said you hired about 30 lawyers to deal with it. What effect did that have on the backlog from then to now?”
Parrish again said he did not have the figures on hand and that such data would have to be obtained directly from the Administrative Office of the Courts.
The two lawmakers seemed more understanding of the position Parrish finds himself in as head of the Public Defender Board.
Sen. Bert Hester (R-Cave Springs) posed a series of questions to Parrish, explaining that the backlog issue is not the committee’s responsibility and suggesting a solution might be to add more judge seats, which Hester said the Legislature would likely do in the next session.
When Parrish pointed out that adding judges would also require more public defenders and prosecutors, Hester quickly changed the subject.
Sen. Linda Chesterfield (D-Little Rock) specifically asked if the shortage of public defenders was just a problem in adult courts, or if it extended to juvenile courts as well. “Is that a problem across the board?” she asked. “Just as there aren’t enough people to meet the need for criminal court lawyers, there aren’t enough people to meet the need for lawyers in the juvenile justice system?”
Parrish said the problem is “across the board” and there aren’t enough public defenders in every courthouse in the state.
“Because of our salaries, we can usually only hire people straight out of law school full time,” Parrish said, and because they lack the experience, they can initially only handle Class C or D felonies or misdemeanors.
Parrish went on at length to cite the fact that public defender offices across the state are unable to find experienced attorneys willing to work full time at a public defender’s salary.
Senator Johnson seemed confused by Rep. Parrish’s explanation. “You explained that the majority of the additional personnel that were hired were handling lower level cases,” he said. Rep. Parrish clarified that he was not talking about attorneys hired for part-time positions, but just generally about how difficult it is to find full-time public defenders here, in terms of pay and hours.
However, this assertion by Parrish must be accompanied by an asterisk. Just prior to beginning work at the Arkansas Times in 2023, I interviewed with the Pulaski County Public Defender’s Office. I had worked there for over three years (September 2006 to October 2009), had many years of experience in the field of criminal law, and genuinely wanted to return to the office. I interviewed with two attorneys I knew from my first tenure with the office, and at the end of the interview, I was told that they would like to hire me, but that ultimately it was up to Mr. Parrish.
I haven’t heard anything from them.
This was about a year after I reported on Parrish’s clumsy and ill-fated hiring of then-state senator Trent Garner as one of his part-time public defenders. A mutual friend later told me that Parrish was “very upset” by the report. So it may not just be pay and hours that are preventing some public defender offices from hiring experienced attorneys.
In the end, the subcommittee was unswayed by Parrish’s insistence that cuts would have to begin if the funding wasn’t approved. Lawmakers voted to hold Parrish’s request until Friday to give him time to provide additional information he requested, including specific hire numbers, how the initial ARPA funds would be spent, and the types and locations of backlogged cases.
