In a split decision, the Idaho Supreme Court is upholding a ruling dismissing a longstanding lawsuit over whether the state’s public defense system was constitutionally inadequate.
Tucker v. Idaho has been ongoing since 2015. At the time, the state let each of its 44 counties run their own public defense systems.
Some counties hired and ran their own public defense offices while others relied on contracting with private attorneys to represent indigent clients who could not afford their own legal counsel.
The ACLU of Idaho, which brought the lawsuit, said public defenders were managing too many cases and couldn’t properly represent all of their clients as required by the Sixth Amendment.
An Ada County judge in Feb. 2024 dismissed the lawsuit because the state legislature created a new state-based public defense system that would take over cases later that year in October.
The opinion said the new system rendered the lawsuit moot, but that another case could be brought if the office also failed to meet its constitutional obligations.
In a 3-2 decision Wednesday, the Idaho Supreme Court upheld the lawsuit’s dismissal, saying the state needed time to get the new office going.
“This is not a case in which a private actor—or even a government actor exercising discretionary authority—simply promises to do better,” wrote Chief Justice Robyn Brody.
“It is one in which the people’s elected representatives have comprehensively restructured a public institution after years of deliberation and have imposed clear statutory mandates to ensure the [State Public Defender Act’s] implementation.”
However, Brody said it’s “not for us to decide today” whether the legislation will “ultimately succeed.”
Justices Gregory Moeller and Richard Bevan concurred.
Justice Cynthia Meyer dissented, writing that the legal framework the majority used to determine whether the issue was moot had not been adopted in Idaho statute or caselaw. Meyer said only a handful of federal courts use this framework, though the 9th Circuit that Idaho operates in does not.
“…the enactment of the [State Public Defense Act] does not render this action moot, as the district court recognized, and the State’s efforts, while laudable, have not yet been proven to resolve the serious deficiencies identified by appellants in the public defense system,” she wrote.
The State Public Defender’s Office struggled at its inception in Oct. 2024.
The ACLU said hundreds, if not thousands, of defendants were left without lawyers as the new state public defender’s office worked to hire enough attorneys in those first few months of operation.
“Every single day, Idahoans are denied their constitutional right to legal representation because of the state’s persistent failure to fix chronic and widespread public defense issues,” ACLU of Idaho Legal Director Paul Carlos Southwick said in a statement Wednesday.
The group called the ruling a disappointment and is considering its options moving forward.
A spokesperson for Attorney General Raúl Labrador didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
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