State public defenders ask JBC for temporary staff and experts as forensic-misconduct notices mount

The state public defender's office told the Joint Budget Committee on Jan. 13 that a recent wave of forensic-misconduct notices and an unrelated change in Aurora's municipal prosecution practice are creating an immediate, multi-year workload surge that requires temporary staff and technical contracts.

"Our decision item is based on the anticipated number of 1,200 cases coming into those courts," Lucy Ohanian, a chief deputy at the Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD), said as she outlined a request for "6.4 additional attorneys and support staff." Ohanian said Aurora Municipal Court historically handled about 1,200 domestic-violence prosecutions a year and that police were already filing many of those cases in state court before an official July 2025 effective date.

The nut of OSPD's appeal is twofold: the expected transfer of misdemeanor domestic-violence dockets into the 17th and 18th Judicial Districts, which Ohanian estimated would yield roughly 900 cases the state would handle, and a parallel, larger set of post-conviction notices generated under the Forensic Science Integrity Act after laboratory misconduct surfaced at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Mister Karbach, who is leading OSPD's forensic-lab response, summarized work already arriving at the agency: "We have received to date about 2,800 notices," he told the committee, and said that the notices concern multiple analysts in addition to the widely publicized Missy Woods case. Karbach said CBI has reported that Woods "touched about 10,000 cases" and at one point labeled roughly 1,100 as having anomalies; OSPD has been trying to reconcile those lab lists with court records to determine how many affected defendants were convicted.

Karbach described the practical consequences: many defendants receiving notices must be screened for poverty and conflict rules before OSPD can undertake post-conviction review; the office has identified roughly 550 convictions on the 1,100-anomaly list and estimated a little over 100 of those individuals are in custody. "When we get that request, we have to figure out if we have a conflict of interest," Karbach said, and added that at current intake rates OSPD is "keeping about 1 in 4" post-conviction intakes while referring others to contract counsel.

OSPD told the JBC it is not seeking large permanent hiring increases tied solely to the lab notices; instead, Karbach and Ohanian emphasized temporary paralegals, short-term lawyers and pre-retained DNA experts to control per-case expert costs. Karbach said the office had used a recent allocation to contract DNA experts and that buying short-term retainer capacity was the fiscally prudent approach compared with paying per-hour emergency rates.

The committee asked several follow-up questions about which districts have provided notices, whether other analysts appear to be implicated and how many defendants are likely to seek counsel. OSPD said the data remain incomplete because some district attorneys and labs have not yet finished sending the statutorily required notices and because records in older cases are often stored in legacy formats.

The hearing did not include a vote. Committee members said they would continue oversight and follow-up with OSPD staff as the agency refines numbers and cost estimates. OSPD and the Alternate Defense Council, which also testified, urged the JBC for near-term funding to prevent slowdowns in cases and to ensure both public defenders and victims are not left waiting for resolution.

Next step: OSPD will continue to update the committee with refined intake and screening counts as more district attorneys comply with the notice process and as OSPD completes conflict and custody screenings.