The Maine Commission on Public Defense Services has announced its new executive director, Frayla Tarpinian, who will lead the effort to address the major backlog of indigent criminal cases.
The commission is also facing a $13 million budget shortfall, and is a defendant in a lawsuit before the state Supreme Court over the quality and availability of attorneys for clients who can't afford their own.
But Tarpinian said she is committed to working with the judicial system to find solutions.
"There's a lot of different issues that have come together to create the situation that we're in," she said. "And it's going to take a lot of work from all the players in the system, to move us beyond this, to get back to a truly functional system."
Tarpinian said Maine's system for indigent criminal defendants is still finding the right balance in its use of rostered private attorneys versus newly created public defender offices.
She said she expects some parts of the state will require larger public defender offices, while other areas might rely more on private attorneys.
"I want to make sure that we have the right size for Maine, which is going to be different in different areas of Maine," Tarpinian said. "So, you know, Somerset County is not going to be staffed the same way that Portland should be staffed."
Tarpinian most recently worked as the District Defender for the state's first brick-and-mortar public defender's office, which covers Kennebec and Somerset Counties. Before that, she worked as a prosecutor and a rostered criminal defense attorney.
