COEUR d'ALENE - Idaho's public defenders are good lawyers who have been asked to represent too many clients with too few resources, according to an article in this month's Idaho law journal, The Advocate.

The article, written by the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, reported on a study of Idaho's indigent defense system by the respected National Legal Aid and Defender Association.

The Advocate article said the defender association's 100-page report detailed many "glaring deficiencies" in the state's public defense system.

The defender association focused its study on the public defense systems of seven different counties in the state. The seven counties were selected based on several characteristics to represent the state as a whole. Kootenai County was among the counties chosen for study.

"The results were clear and grim: The study found that the state of Idaho fails to provide the level of representation required by the Constitution," Ritchie Eppink wrote in this month's article.

The study pointed to excessive workloads for public defenders, and "cattle-call proceedings in magistrate courts where defendants are pressured to 'work out a deal' before getting appointed (defense) counsel."

John Adams, Kootenai County's supervising public defender, said Wednesday the report determined his office needs an additional dozen lawyers -based on the number of cases it handles - to meet national standards of trial-level indigent defense.

He currently has 16 lawyers in his office. Kootenai County contracts with area defense lawyers in cases of conflicts.

"(Study authors) say that we have case loads that range from 152 percent to 217 percent of national standards," said Adams, who also is a member of the Idaho Criminal Justice Commission.

As for criminal defendants being pressured to "work out a deal" in their cases before speaking with a defense lawyer, Adams said that simply doesn't happen in this county.

"We try more cases in this office than anybody in the state does," Adams said. "We try more cases in this office than Ada County does, and they have 64 lawyers."

The report also said there is a lack of training and supervision statewide.

Not in Kootenai County, Adams said.

"In this office, when we have adequate funds for training, we do it," Adams said. His latest request for training funds wasn't fully funded, coming up more than $12,000 short, he said.

So, he said, lawyers in his office could be falling short on training in the near future.

According to the defender association report, "Though the supervision and mentoring shown in Kootenai County is of a higher quality than we observed in any other Idaho county, it is still informal and lacks adequate performance review for all staff in the office."

Adams' office provides both in-house and external continuing legal education programs to its staff, and holds group meetings for issue discussions and education, the report said.

"The (Kootenai County) public defender office maintains the most client-centered approach to representation of any Idaho system we observed during our study," it said.