Pennsylvania’s first two years of funding indigent defense resulted in progress toward better services for criminal defendants who cannot otherwise afford their own counsel, according to reports released earlier this year.

In Butler County, the funding has allowed the public defender’s office to support new positions to aid those it serves.

The public defender’s office has received over $95,000 a year from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency’s Indigent Defense Grant fund, and will have received a total of $289,810 when the funding expires June 30, 2027.

“It’s definitely beneficial,” said chief public defender Charles Nedz.

“We’re basically using that money for a part-time attorney position, for a part-time paralegal position and for an individual from the Center for Community Resources to provide assistance to our clients for social service matters,” Nedz said.

In addition, case management software and a new printer/copier were purchased with the grant money, he said.

The part-time attorney and paralegal positions were new positions created in the public defender’s office.

The attorney represents clients at preliminary hearings and mental health hearings, Nedz said.

The Center for Community Resources provides social service support for clients dealing with drug and alcohol and mental health issues, he said.

He said he hopes and expects the state to continue funding the program beyond the current expiration date.

Across the state, public defender’s and indigent defense advocates say the money is a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done.

“The money is a good start,” said Sara Jacobson, who spoke with Spotlight PA in her capacity as executive director of the Public Defender Association of Pennsylvania, or PDAP. Jacobson also served as chair of the advisory committee for its first two years.

But an annual $7.5 million investment split across 67 counties couldn’t fix the dire state of many public defenders’ offices across Pennsylvania.

A new body, the Indigent Defense Advisory Committee, created the Commonwealth’s first standards for this kind of representation and a massive data collection effort has provided policymakers with the first statewide picture of public defense.

An analysis of indigent defense by the committee and the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency shows the state is about 400 attorneys short of what it needs to provide adequate representation for adult criminal cases. It also found that starting public defender salaries lagged that of the average attorney in the state.

In addition, defense offices are hemorrhaging staff, with counties reporting that nearly 40% of attorneys hired within the past five years have already left. Of these, most departed within two years of being hired.

Because of turnover, there are fewer full-time public defense attorneys today than in 2024, when county offices received their first round of funding from the state government.

For decades, Pennsylvania was one of only two states in the country that did not fund public defense, leaving counties to shoulder the burden.

In 2023, the state legislature and Gov. Josh Shapiro approved $7.5 million, giving most public defenders’ offices their first infusion from the state. The funds recurred in 2024 and 2025 and are suggested at the same level in Shapiro’s 2026 budget proposal.

In 2024, the ACLU of Pennsylvania sued the state, arguing Pennsylvania’s county-by-county system of funding public defense has resulted in a patchwork that violates the U.S. Constitution. The case is ongoing.

In two rounds of funding since 2023, counties were awarded just under $13 million in grants from the state, which are noncompetitive and allocated through a formula.

Every county has put money toward personnel, with 76% of the grant money funds being budgeted for staff and contracted positions. Across the state, offices created 37 new attorney and support staff positions.

The legislature also created the Indigent Defense Advisory Committee to allocate the money and establish statewide standards for public defense.

Those standards were finalized in September and submitted to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania for approval. They mandate that attorneys providing no-cost criminal defense have sufficient knowledge of the law, continue their education and have a reasonable understanding of relevant technology and forensic science. The new standards also establish that effective representation includes a client-centered approach.

These new baselines are currently pending before the high court, which has referred them to the criminal and juvenile rules committees, said Ted Skaarup, assistant public defender for Northampton County. Skaarup is also the chair of the advisory committee.

The new money can have a noticeable impact for public defenders’ offices across the state, but it can’t fix all the problems with indigent defense. Indigent clients often need mental health care, substance abuse treatment or both, but sometimes lack the ability to find that help on their own.

Similarly, while the grant funding is helping counties bring on more attorneys, it can’t make up for decades of underfunding.

The committee found the number of full-time public defense attorneys actually decreased from 828.5 to 820.5 over the course of the grant program, driven by aggressive turnover in the offices.

When public defense caseloads get overwhelming, there’s less time to devote to each individual case. Attorneys can only triage cases and negotiate the best guilty plea they can, which is not an effective level of defense.

An analysis of case outcomes by PDAP found this already happens. Using the indigent defense committee report and a 2021 report by the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, PDAP found that between 2022 and 2024, 11 counties took three or fewer cases to trial and 16 counties filed two or fewer appeals.

Additionally in up to 20% of cases, court documents showed the defendant had either no or “unknown” representation. It’s unclear whether these defendants truly did not have representation or whether the court clerks just didn’t enter their attorney information into Pennsylvania’s case management system.

Eagle staff writer Steve Ferris contributed to this report.

BEFORE YOU GO … If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org/donate. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters.