Indigent Defense commission and solicitors urge grants, staffing to speed case processing; commission seeks $2.98M

Hugh Ryan, director of the South Carolina Indigent Defense Commission, told the Senate Finance Committee that the commission is asking for $2,980,000 in general funds to expand staff and retain public defenders and related support personnel, and that the commission supports a grant program to help circuits adopt a three‑tier case-management model solicitors say has reduced backlogs in pilot areas.

Ryan described the commission’s DefenderData system, a 17‑year-old platform the commission pays approximately $174,000 a year to license and which the commission uses to report caseloads, warrants and other operational data. He said that the commission’s data can already show county- and circuit-level workloads and that the commission is willing to work with judicial-branch IT modernization efforts where integration is possible.

The $2.98 million recurring request is aimed at hiring and retaining public defenders and adding investigators, victim advocates and other staff; Ryan said the commission’s ratio remains about three lawyers to every support staff member and that more staff are needed to make hired attorneys effective. “We feel like…that’s a reasonable sum,” Ryan said in presenting the request.

Ryan and Solicitor (Prosecutor) Stone described a three‑tier model—teams that triage newly filed cases, teams that prepare cases for trial, and teams that run court—which Stone said the South Carolina Supreme Court has recommended in a recent case‑flow order. Stone presented data from the 14th Circuit where the model was implemented and described productivity improvements: pending cases in his circuit fell from roughly 6,000 to 4,100 during the first year of the new approach, about 1,600 fewer pending cases, and his office reported higher numbers of diversions and drug‑court placements and “doubled our conviction numbers” under a triage/prep/court structure.

Solicitor Stone urged a grant program so circuits that have capacity can adopt the model; Ryan described a $5,600,000 proviso in the commission’s request intended as a grant pool and said the commission would administer grants and require proposals from circuits that want to participate.

Committee members asked whether the commission’s data showed improvements more broadly; Ryan said public‑defender metrics such as warrants over a year old had declined in recent years for public‑defender offices (for example, warrants more than one year old dropped roughly 14 percent from FY 2022–23 to FY 2023–24 in the commission’s data). Senators also asked about the mix of recurring versus one‑time funding and whether grant awards could be carried forward; Ryan said the commission’s proposal includes a proviso to allow carryforward for grant implementation in year one.

The commission noted it has increased average public‑defender salaries from roughly $64,000 to about $75,000 and has grown headcount toward 389 public defenders (including contract attorneys), and said past recurring and one‑time funding helped reach those gains.

No formal votes were taken during the hearing. Solicitors and the commission asked the committee to consider the recurring $2.98 million request and the $5.6 million grant proviso as tools to institutionalize a case‑processing model the speakers said produces measurable reductions in pending caseloads and faster resolution of cases.

The committee did not act on the requests at the hearing and asked staff to review the commission’s materials and data.