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Board approves expanded Appendix B to Indigent Defense Standards
Summary
The board approved an expanded Appendix B — an exhaustive case-type matrix intended to guide public defender qualification and case weighting across Washington jurisdictions; the CPD and county data informed recategorizations the board said will be revenue neutral.
The board voted to adopt revisions to Appendix B of the Indigent Defense Standards on a roll-call vote Thursday, approving an expanded, exhaustive case-type matrix the Council on Public Defense (CPD) said will make qualification and case-weighting easier for public defense administrators.
Jason Schwartz of the Council on Public Defense presented the proposal and said the appendix — a chart of commonly filed criminal case types used in public defense qualification (standard 14) and case weighting — is being expanded from roughly 200 entries to an exhaustive list. "We have today before you all a ... proposal to amend what is called Appendix B," Schwartz said, adding the new spreadsheet lists every felony and its corresponding weight.
Schwartz told governors the CPD prepared the spreadsheet with help from the King County Department of Public Defense and other county data staff. He gave the board a size estimate: "It's about 600 and if I recall correctly, 620 entries long," and said the recategorization used practitioner hours from King and Snohomish counties to assign weights. He said jurisdictions that reviewed the changes reported the update would be revenue neutral: "I do believe it will be revenue neutral for all jurisdictions."
The CPD also split some broad case-type categories into more discrete categories to reflect different training needs and typical attorney time for those case types. Schwartz said some case types moved up in weight and some moved down after the data review and that CPD had approved the revised appendix unanimously following stakeholder review that included judges, prosecutors and nonlawyer members.
A board member moved to approve Appendix B "as proposed" and another seconded. During the roll call, Mary Rathbone registered a "No" vote; the remaining recorded responses were affirmative, one governor was noted as not yet joined, and the clerk announced the motion "passes with 1 negative vote." The board recorded an 11–1 yes/no split with one member not recorded as present at the roll call.
The changes are procedural and administrative: the CPD framed them as tools for administrators and practitioners to improve consistency in qualification and case-weighting. The board did not adopt any additional funding or programmatic directives during the vote.
The board thanked the CPD and closed the public portion of the item. The board then scheduled an executive session to receive legal advice on proposed conflict-of-interest and political-activity policies.
