Maine’s public defense agency predicts it will need $64.5 million over the next two years to continue building out its public defense offices and find lawyers for the hundreds of criminal defendants who are still waiting for court-appointed counsel.

The Maine Commission on Public Defense Services voted unanimously Monday to send the rough estimate to the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, which is beginning to work on the governor’s next biennial budget proposal.

The commission’s latest request would cover 128 new positions, internship opportunities and administrative costs, like office space and technology, from 2026 to 2027. It also includes a few supplemental requests for lawmakers in 2025, asking them to support opening three new public defense offices: in Cumberland County, York County and the Midcoast.

They are also hoping for $5 million to offer stipends to private attorneys to incentivize them to accept defendants with more complicated cases.

It’s a rough and early estimate that commissioners acknowledged Monday will likely change, given the fluidity of the state’s budgeting process. The commission sought a similar $62.1 million two years ago. They didn’t receive all that they asked for, but still got enough to increase the private attorney reimbursement rate from $80 an hour to $150 an hour and to open the state’s first public defense offices.

Yet even with those new investments, there continues to be a public defense crisis in Maine as defendants in more than 860 criminal cases are currently waiting for a court-appointed lawyer. About a quarter of these defendants are in jail.

Only about 102 lawyers statewide were accepting new trial-level work as of Wednesday, but these attorneys are usually geographically limited or only available for certain case types. As a result, there are several counties that have no lawyers accepting some of the most serious offenses, including domestic violence, sexual assault and drug trafficking.

“Our exposure politically, if more cases continue to be dismissed in the trial court and we have another (Leein) Hinckley case happen, can’t be overstated,” Executive Director Jim Billings said during Monday’s meeting.

Hinckley had been arrested on domestic violence charges but his bail was reduced after he waited three weeks for a lawyer. Once out of jail, he set his ex-girlfriend’s Auburn home on fire, leading to his death and that of another man. The case put new scrutiny on judges and the commission.

“So I think it’s important that we do something and we are seen as trying to do something aggressive to try and place these cases,” Billings said.

The commission has for years relied on a roster of private attorneys who are willing to take on court-appointed work. But the group is now trying to move toward a standard public defense system, with attorneys hired by the state to exclusively practice criminal defense. It has set a goal of covering 50% of the state’s adult criminal and parental cases with public defenders by 2027.

It also wants to create public defense offices for appeals and post conviction reviews by 2027, and create opportunities for law students to get more involved in public defense, through internships and the University of Maine School of Law’s rural practice clinic.

REQUEST TO BOOST STIPENDS

The $5 million request for stipends would allow the commission to pay private attorneys an extra $50 an hour to sign up for some of these cases that the commission is struggling to staff. In Oregon, where the state’s public defense system is in a similar crisis, Billings said officials have seen success with a comparable program.

Some commission members were concerned that without planning, the stipend process might be difficult to administer fairly.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Commissioner Donald Alexander, a former state supreme court justice, said in the meeting. “Because otherwise Jim’s right – people are going to want to do the easy cases. … They get the same amount of money, and that’s something we need to move away from.”

Commissioner Roger Katz (who is a member of the community board for the Maine Trust for Local News) questioned how this idea will be received by lawmakers and the governor, given that they’ve already nearly doubled the reimbursement rate in recent years.

“I can just see some legislator, or frankly someone in the administration, saying, ‘Well wait a minute now – we just doubled the rate,’ ” said Katz, a former Republican state senator from Augusta.