OKPOLICY.ORG
Last week, the Senate Appropriations Public Safety and Judiciary Subcommittee — chaired by Sen. Todd Gollihare, R-Kellyville — held budget hearings from several agencies, including the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System (OIDS). Executive Director Debbie Maddox, on the job for less than a year, presented the agency’s FY 2027 budget request that included a new look for OIDS.
She presented several creative requests aimed at quality representation of indigent criminal defendants and lowering recidivism through diversion programs within OIDS.
OIDS provides defense attorneys for indigent defendants in 75 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties, including everywhere outside Tulsa and Oklahoma counties. The two metro jurisdictions have county public defender offices, leaving OIDS as the criminal defense agency for rural Oklahoma.
Last year, OIDS provided defense counsel in 47,000 cases on a budget of $26.47 million through full-time attorneys in 37 counties and contracts with private attorneys in 38 counties. Maddox made the case for additional attorneys because the lawyers in some counties, including Cleveland and Comanche counties, carry a caseload of up to 250 cases at a time.
Maddox made the heartbreaking point that in many rural areas, because they are a “service desert,” the only way for someone to gain access to mental health, drug treatment, and other urgent services is to get into trouble with the law.
The new executive director would like to expand the focus of OIDS to include providing diversion services at the front end of the system. She says her attorneys know this population and are well suited and motivated to get those entangled in the system the help they need.
Researching other states, Maddox found the six surrounding states make much better use of diversion programs that keep the accused from getting felony convictions on their record that, in many cases, make them unemployable in the private marketplace. She said a big difference is that, in the other six states, the diversion programs are run by the District Attorney offices.
However, in Oklahoma, DAs do not have buy-in for such programs. She found through her research that the Healthy Minds Policy Initiative has proposed multiple treatment and diversion programs that would save the state $83 million if the diversion programs were accepted and properly used.
It is refreshing to see the OIDS director taking an expansive view of the positive possibilities for the criminal legal system in Oklahoma. She is offering solutions to legislators that will hold people accountable, enhance public safety, and curb over reliance on incarceration that is so expensive for taxpayers and destructive to many families in Oklahoma.
