PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — In a story published May 7, 2022, about a severe shortage of public defenders in Oregon, The Associated Press reported that COVID-19 shut down courts in the state. The story should have made clear that while there were no felony or misdemeanor jury trials in April 2020 and access to the court system was greatly curtailed for months, there were limited in-person proceedings and remote services were provided.
Clarification: Public Defender Crisis story
Carl Macpherson, executive director at Metropolitan Public Defender, examines the file in a double murder case that was recently pushed back for trial in his office in Portland, Ore., on May 5, 2022. Macpherson says his firm of 90 public defenders recently stopped taking certain types of new criminal cases for a month in two local courts because they had so many cases that the attorneys were violating their ethical obligations to clients. A post-pandemic glut of delayed cases has exposed shocking constitutional landmines impacting defendants and crime victims alike in Oregon, where an acute shortage of public defenders has even led judges to dismiss serious cases. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus)