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Q&A: Meet South Dakota’s first state public defender • South Dakota Searchlight [1]

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Date: 2024-09-18

A deputy public defender from Sioux Falls will head up the recently created state Office of Indigent Legal Services, according to an announcement Wednesday from the Unified Judicial System.

Christopher Miles, 35, will leave the Minnehaha County Public Defender’s Office to lead a team of four lawyers, a paralegal and a legal secretary. The office in Sioux Falls will primarily be tasked with representing those who cannot afford an attorney in their appeals to the South Dakota Supreme Court, but will also serve as a data hub for public defense and work on ways to improve its delivery across the state.

Lawmakers signed off on the new office this year, as well as on the creation of a Commission on Indigent Legal Services, at the urging of state Supreme Court Chief Justice Steven Jensen. The office was the number one recommendation of a study group that spent 2023 looking into issues with the state’s approach to indigent defense.

Most states already have a state-level public defender’s office, but South Dakota did not.

That’s been a burden for the counties that pick up the tab for public defense, especially in recent years. There are only three fully staffed county public defender offices in the state, and most counties contract with private attorneys. Those roles are often difficult to fill in rural areas, as most lawyers live in larger cities including Sioux Falls, Rapid City or Pierre.

“The Commission was fortunate to have exceptional candidates for the chief defender position. We are excited about Chris Miles being the first chief defender,” said Commission on Indigent Legal Services Chair Neil Fulton, who is dean of the University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law.

Miles recently answered questions from South Dakota Searchlight. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell us about your background.

I grew up in Brookings and graduated from Brookings High School. After that, I actually went on to play baseball at Fort Scott Community College in Kansas, but ended up making my way back home and graduated from South Dakota State University.

I did end up going to law school in St Paul, to William Mitchell College of Law.

When did you join the Minnehaha County Public Defender’s Office, how long have you been there, and what was it that drew you to the work?

I started doing public defense work with Minnehaha County Public Defender’s Office all the way back in November of 2015.

You know, I feel like just the sense of fairness was always something that was kind of a fundamental principle for me. I think with public defense work specifically, it was a way for me to apply myself in the court system, really, with that fairness principle leading the way.

The work is definitely challenging, but it’s also very rewarding. Another aspect of why I’ve been able to stay so long is that for a lot of my time there, I’ve been doing appellate work. I enjoy appellate work quite a bit. I haven’t really had a desire to leave because that work has been so fulfilling.

When you say appellate work, can you explain what you’re talking about?

I’ve been doing direct appeals to the South Dakota Supreme Court. So primarily what I’ve been doing is a lot of reading transcripts, researching legal issues, and then submitting briefs to the South Dakota Supreme Court for individuals that have been convicted and then are seeking review from a higher court.

I’m spending my time seeing if there’s any supporting case law to advance the argument that (the defendant would) like to make, and then ultimately decide whether or not there’s merit to the appeal and whether or not it’s worth pursuing.

I’m kind of guiding them through that difficult process.

Why were you drawn to this statewide position? What is it you feel South Dakota needs from an office like this?

The office, at least initially, will be handling direct appeals. As I said, the majority of my time at the public defender’s office was spent on appeals, so I feel like I’d have a pretty good handle on it.

I think this office will benefit more people than just the individuals we plan on serving. Across the state, in particular rural areas, there’s just limited access to quality representation for people that have been accused of crimes. So that’s certainly one aspect that we hope to overcome.

And then at a more macro level, the county-based system is putting a lot of strain on the counties financially, the costs are rising. Not only rising, they’re also unpredictable. So on a year-to-year basis, it’s hard for the counties to really budget. The goal is to implement a better system, where we can deliver the public defense services to those who need it, and to also reduce the financial burden on the counties.

What kinds of appeals are we talking about?

We would be handling criminal appeals, and we would also be handling any direct appeal to the South Dakota Supreme Court, which could also include individuals who are appealing decisions in an abuse and neglect proceeding, like a termination of parental rights, individuals who are seeking an appeal of petition for writ of habeas corpus (prisoners disputing the legality of their incarceration), and then potentially some juvenile cases on direct appeal.

What are a few common misconceptions about indigent defense, in South Dakota or otherwise?

One is that taxpayer dollars spent on public defense don’t contribute to public safety. An adequately trained and funded law enforcement agency and an adequately trained public defense system are both necessary and important functions for government.

Maybe, for example, an individual that is convicted of a crime didn’t actually commit that crime. Well, when we have a well-trained and equipped public defense system, that is less likely to happen. But it also reduces the chances that someone who actually did commit the crime is free. And furthermore, when we as public defense attorneys are testing law enforcement in the courts, we really improve law enforcement, as well.

And then on just a purely economic level, when we have effective public defense attorneys that are doing good work at the trial level, that reduces the amount of resources that end up getting spent maybe litigating the integrity of a conviction on the back end.

Are you coming in with a set of goals? What do you expect will be your guiding principles as you build this office from the ground up? What will success look like to you five years from now?

One of the overarching goals is to just continue to collect data from across the state, using that data to then improve the ways and the mechanisms and the means by which we really deliver public defense services. Our focus will be to streamline the processes so we can ensure that caseloads across the state are within the standards we adopt.

In five years, it would be great if we had branch offices across the state, streamlined processes, and potentially even, here with the statewide office, attorneys that are equipped to handle high-level felony cases at the trial court level.

Anything else you want the people of South Dakota to know as you step into this role?

With building the office up from nothing, so from the ground up, we’ll definitely have some hurdles and some growing pains along the way. The change that we see will be incremental, but we’re very excited for the office to come to fruition. We’ll certainly appreciate the patience as we move forward.

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[1] Url: https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2024/09/18/qa-meet-south-dakotas-first-state-public-defender/

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