Tulsa County Public Defenders Office in 'better shape' than most, though McGirt added to the challenge

The footwear paired with jeans for the jail visit was not an afterthought. Riera said she chose a casual style hoping her clients would feel more at ease.

“I look at my clients as people,” she said. “They’re not ‘the bad guys.’”

Plus, in lieu of a conviction, those people are legally innocent and allowed a fair chance at fighting the state’s charges with adequate representation. 

The constitutional right afforded to every American, in practice, is being found less and less attainable across the West after staff shortages and decades of underfunding have spurred widespread public defense systems crises, the Lee Enterprises Public Service Journalism Team has found.

The Tulsa County Public Defenders Office is aware of the industry struggles but is substantially more stable than some other offices in and outside the state, Chief Public Defender Corbin Brewster said.

“We have taken big strides toward improving the quality of our office’s representation in the last five years, and credit goes to the hardworking attorneys and staff in this office,” Brewster said. Still, “we face the same challenges every public defenders office in the country faces: oversized caseloads and inadequate budget."

For years, funding for public defenders in Oklahoma has been “a fraction” of prosecutors’ spending even though most criminal prosecutions are defended by public defenders, Brewster said, and those disparities have real impact on his office’s ability to recruit and retain attorneys.

“In the last two years alone, our office lost 12 attorneys to higher-paying jobs that became available in federal and tribal courts in the wake of McGirt,” Brewster said.

The loss resulted in hundreds of cases requiring reassignment while the public defenders also saw an increase in the overall share of cases.

In 2016, public defenders were appointed to about one-third of the nearly 6,400 misdemeanor cases filed in Tulsa County, according to Brewster. That share increased to more than half in the past two years, he said.

In 2022, more than 5,000 felony cases were filed in the county, and “we were appointed in over 70%," Brewster said.

The American Bar Association recommends no public defender handle more than 150 felony cases or 400 misdemeanor cases per year, but that number shrinks when complex cases or additional responsibilities are taken into account.

Brewster said his felony attorneys average about 215 felony cases each year while misdemeanor attorneys average about 550 cases.

One of 16 dedicated felony attorneys at the Tulsa County Public Defenders Office, Riera said she considers herself well taken care-of with better compensation than she had in Oklahoma County, but she’s not ignorant of the caseload strain.

“We are overworked,” she said. “But I care.”

'The underdogs'

For Adam Haselgren, it’s about helping those who cannot help themselves.

“It’s not just the legal aspect,” the 16-year public defender said. “You hope you don’t see the same client twice; it’s getting them to the resources to help them get better instead of going to prison.

“Hopefully we can stop that revolving door at least for them.”

Riera obtained a law degree after coming up short in a volatile cycle in the energy industry, and she decided she could do the “most good” as a public defender because of her fluency in Spanish.

A true-crime fanatic, her idea of the justice system and how it worked was initially wrong in many ways, she said, but she now takes joy in assisting people "on the worst day of their life." Riera said she recognizes many issues common to marginalized society members that others often take for granted — like access to transportation, cellphones and freedom from substance addiction — likely compounded to bring them to where they’re at when she comes to meet them.

There’s almost always more than meets the eye in any filed case, Assistant Public Defender Alex Bramblett said, noting that probable cause has been found in every case ending in acquittal. That’s why it’s imperative defense attorneys hold the criminal justice system accountable, Haselgren said.

“We’re the underdogs,” Riera said. “The (prosecutors and) police have all the power.”

The trio are among several three-person felony teams operating within the Tulsa County Public Defenders Office, with each attorney receiving one new week of preliminary hearings each month on top of their ongoing cases.

Haselgren said the average attorney probably receives about 40 case assignments a month.

“It’s easy to get overwhelmed,” Haselgren said. “But it’s funny what you can get used to.”

Bramblett said he finds his caseload “manageable,” given the office’s “rare” number of investigators and other support specialists, but his one wish would be better access to experts through funding.

Most of the time he enjoys the work of getting lost in serving others, but at other times he clings to the U.S. military aphorism: “Embrace the suck.”

What’s at stake is worth the effort, Bramblett said. Although most defendants the public defenders office represents are guilty, and therefore their representation is a quest for just punishment that fits the crime, the threat of a false conviction remains dire.

“I never want to be part of a case that wasn’t handled well,” Bramblett said.

A well-supported public defenders office is essential to a functional and fair justice system, Brewster said.

“Our duty at a basic level is to ensure that our clients receive effective, quality representation and to assert their rights in court,” he said. “However, by protecting the rights of the most vulnerable and powerless, public defenders protect the rights of all.”

October 2022: Attorneys for Oklahoma present arguments against McGirt before U.S. Supreme Court