The public defenders who took our survey did not give their names. Instead, we emailed randomly generated codes to 404 public defenders and required them to enter their code in order to submit a completed survey. Here’s what they told us. (The double dashes in the charts below indicate “no answer.”)
The MinnPost public defender survey and the story that accompanies the results were produced in partnership with students at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and funded in part with a grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.
Your article fails to mention the costs to society in general for the delays caused by the inability of Public Defenders to deal with cases. Judges, dozens of court personnel, prosecutors and witnesses are all sitting around waiting for the over worked PD’s to show up. The cost has to be in the thousands of dollars per day in courtrooms across the state.