With fewer public defenders, indigent defendants pay the price

A courtroom at the Placer County Superior Court in Roseville, California, earlier this year. In California and other states, the rosters of public defenders have been shrinking at an alarming rate, often leaving defendants in jail for days, weeks or months without access to an attorney. (Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr./CalMatters)AUSTIN, Texas — It was a good day for the defense. Standing in front of a judge in Austin’s Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center, attorney Matthew Shrum secured a ruling that spared his client from serious punishment on a shoplifting charge. In the hallway immediately afterward, the defendant thanked Shrum with an appreciative hug. “She walked out of there a free lady,” Shrum observed later. “It was Christmas in October.” The 49-year-old Austin lawyer has spent most of his 20-year legal career as a defense attorney, and since 2023, he has been affiliated with the nonprofit Capital Area Private Defender Service, one of two entities in Travis County charged w