The state’s system that manages legal representation for low-income defendants is awaiting two big decisions that will shape its future.
The Maine Commission on Public Defense Services faces a nearly $13 million funding gap in 2026, as well as a long-awaited ruling from the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
The outcome of those two issues will determine what 2026 — and likely years beyond — looks like for the state’s indigent defense. The ruling from Maine’s high court could either erode or strengthen people’s right to a lawyer, while inadequate funding could drive lawyers away from the system.
Without more funding lawyers will leave because other fields are more lucrative, the commission’s Executive Director Frayla Tarpinian said.
Funding for the commission will run out by April, meaning it won’t be able to pay lawyers until sometime after the new fiscal year starts July 1. The commission manages the state’s list of lawyers who take on indigent defendants — people who likely can’t afford a private attorney — as well as the public defender offices.
The supreme court heard oral arguments Oct. 7 for the case after an “emergency motion” filed in June by the state. No ruling has been issued and there is no timeline for when the highest court will release the written opinion.
The issues before the court were about if people’s Sixth Amendment rights were violated and if people have experienced habeas corpus violations, meaning they were unlawfully detained, and if they can be released and have charges dismissed.
Kennebec County Superior Justice Michaela Murphy ruled in March that Maine has violated the Sixth Amendment rights of indigent defendants. Under that ruling, people who spend 14 days in jail without a lawyer are eligible to be released with bail conditions, and people who wait 60 days for a lawyer will have charges dismissed. Those charges can be refiled once lawyers are found.
There were roughly 1,000 people waiting for lawyers in Maine in January 2025. Just under 300 cases were without lawyers as of Dec. 24, according to a list maintained by the state.
If lawyers won’t take cases because they won’t be paid on time, the list of people waiting will continue to grow, Tarpinian said.
“That would be catastrophic for our system,” Tarpinian said.
Criminal defense attorney Robert Ruffner, who runs the Maine Indigent Defense Center, said he will have to find a line of credit because he has 11 lawyers and four support staff to pay even when the state may not pay.
“If we lose defenders, we lose private counsel, it would be naive to think that the quality of justice isn’t going to be affected,” Ruffner said. “If you’ve got less people doing more work, they can’t give the same attention to everything. Not that anybody would intentionally phone it in for a client or do less than a good job, but there’s only so much that you can do.”
While the center isn’t interested in switching to private criminal law, other lawyers who run their own small businesses will have to make other plans to earn money, Ruffner said.
“Every other type of law pays significantly more,” Ruffner said, when talking about indigent defense. “When they start to realize that they’re less stressed and their bank accounts look better and they can make payroll easier, it’s going to be harder to get them to come back.”
Small firms and lawyers who do solo work are going to struggle to pay their mortgages and put food on the table because they are not getting paid, Tarpinian said.
Other criminal defense lawyers are close to retirement and many will likely take this as a chance to retire, he said.
“If that happens, the second half of 2026 is going to look much worse than the second half of 2025,” Ruffner said.
Lawyers will get paid eventually but only after a significant delay if the state does not provide adequate funding, Tarpinian said.
The commission is waiting to see what Gov. Janet Mill’s supplemental budget looks like when it’s released in January. Maine’s two-year budget signed in June by Mills is $11.3 billion. The commission requested $64.5 million a year and received roughly $51 million per year.
“As of right now we still have a budget shortfall that keeps me up at night,” Tarpinian said.
“If Mills had not stripped the commission’s funding and the legislature had passed a budget that adequately funded indigent defense, the problems would not be nearly as bad as they are,” Ruffner said. He said he thinks there would be public defender offices in every county.
A bill before the Legislature in the upcoming session aims to provide reimbursement for lawyers assigned to cases and create a public defender office in Cumberland County. The offices are designed to supplement the contract lawyers.
There seems to be bipartisan support for funding the indigent defense system because it impacts everyone, said Alicia Rea, a policy fellow for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine.
“If the state does not fund the criminal justice system and have a functioning indigent defense system, it harms everyone,” Rea said. “It harms not just the people who are accused of the crimes. It impacts the victims of those crimes and the public who deserve to know the results of investigations and what our system is actually doing for them.”
The funding needs to provide effective counsel, which includes providing training for lawyers, Rea said. Without that, the system will see far claims of ineffective counsel, which will tie the court up in appeals.
The number of lawyers on the roster to take indigent defense cases has grown year after year. Assuming the commission is able to pay people, Tarpinian said she’s optimistic that the work will continue to improve.
The commission has to continue its work while it waits for the supreme court ruling. Tarpinian said she’s eager to see the decision and implement whatever it says.
“[We have to] make sure that everybody here who is entitled to court-appointed counsel has an attorney,” Tarpinian said. “We don’t need the law court to tell us that that’s what we need to be doing. That’s what we’re going to continue to do.”