On March 18, 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gideon vs. Wainwright the Constitution required states to provide attorneys to indigent defendants who can’t afford legal representation.

 The Court held the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of counsel is a fundamental right essential to a fair trial and applies to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

That makes March 18, 2026, National Public Defense Day!

While Gideon has been the law of the land across the U.S. for 63 years, the right to indigent representation in Idaho goes back to 1923, when the Idaho Supreme Court declared defendants who could not afford an attorney had a right to counsel in Idaho vs. Montroy.

You could even go back to 1889, where Article 1, Section 13 of the Idaho Constitution guarantees the right of citizens to “appear and defend in person and with counsel” to show Idaho’s commitment to public defense.

The mission of the State Public Defender (SPD) is to provide holistic representation meeting the highest standards to protect the rights of Idahoans charged with crimes that can’t afford counsel – in a fair and just way that values the humanity and dignity of all.

We’ve spent every minute of our existence, since our client-centered agency was born on Oct. 1, 2024, working on those concepts.

When the SPD consolidated 44-county-based public defense offices into one agency in 2004, we inherited approximately 12,000 open and active criminal cases. For our first full year, our attorneys were assigned 67,434 cases. We’ve been assigned an additional 24,000 cases since Oct. 1, 2025.

As those numbers indicate, the need for a robust and effective public defense system is vast.

Congratulations to all of the 300+ SPD employees – and almost 200 contract/conflict attorneys across the state – for serving Idaho with such distinction.

It’s a privilege to do this work to guarantee justice for all.