Arlington County Board Member J. Walter Tejada was featured in an article on Arlington's need for a public defender's office in the Washington Post. Arlington and Prince William counties are the two jurisdictions in Northern Virginia without a public defender's office. The Post said that Tejada is "spearheading the effort" and that "officials in Arlington County will ask the state legislature this month to pass a law authorizing a public defender's office in the county, saying that Arlington's low-income and minority residents are often ill-served by court-appointed counsel.
Tejada said that "an increase in criminal cases in the county of 193,000 has overloaded Arlington's 30 or so court-appointed attorneys. A public defender's office with full-time attorneys on staff would be better equipped to handle indigent clients." He declared, "We do have a crisis" and noted that there is "broad community support" among minority and church groups for the measure. "The workload has increased substantially, and often private attorneys don't have the bilingual staff or resources to adequately represent these clients."
State Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple (D-Arlington), who will be co-sponsoring the legislation, said: "I think we have a pretty good case for it. The other Northern Virginia jurisdictions have public defenders, and that's the strength of our request."
