June 27 marked the final meeting of Idaho’s Public Defense Commission (PDC), which spent the last decade working to improve indigent criminal defense across the state.

The PDC was created by the Idaho Legislature in 2014 to ensure the state’s county-based indigent criminal defense system complied with the 6^th Amendment right to counsel.

When the Idaho Legislature created the State Public Defender (SPD) Office in 2023, consolidating all public defense in Idaho from a county-based system to a statewide agency, they established the new agency would continue the work of the PDC.

The goal of the PDC was to collect data, create rules and standards, and provide training to ensure attorneys practicing indigent public defense in Idaho followed best practices.

The PDC also administered and gave out Indigent Defense Grants to counties that needed financial support.

While several PDC staff members joined the State Public Defender when our office officially went online July 1, we said goodbye to the commission during the final PDC meeting at our new SPD office in Boise.

We want to thank Chair Darrell Bolz; Owyhee County Clerk Angela Barkell; retired Chief Justice of the Idaho Supreme Court Linda Copple-Trout; Idaho State Sen. Melissa Wintrow; Idaho State Public Appellate Defender Eric Lehtinen; Idaho Rep. David Cannon; Dan Dining from the Idaho Association of Counties; and Twin Falls County Public Defender Ben Anderson for their work supporting indigent defense in Idaho. The SPD – and the entire indigent criminal defense community in Idaho – is deeply indebted to the work the PDC has done over the last decade.