Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) signed a measure into law that provides funding to the state’s Public Defenders Service (PDS).
This comes just days after the agency announced it had run out of money to pay its attorneys. According to a PDS press release, final payments for FY26 were set to be made on March 23. Beyond that, lawyers would not have been paid until mid-July, when the new fiscal year begins.
This emergency piece of legislation allocates a total of $22 million from the state’s General Fund to keep these services running, including $13 million for FY26 and $9 million for FY27. This lapse in funding was expected to impact roughly 360 private attorneys who handle the overwhelming majority of indigent defense cases in Maine.
Under Maine court rules, attorneys already assigned to cases cannot withdraw unless replacement counsel is found or the court allows it. That means many lawyers could have been trapped handling serious criminal cases without pay, or alternatively, risking ethical violations and professional discipline if they tried to leave.
PDS Director Frayla Tarpinian told NewsCenterMaine that the agency expected many of these private attorneys to stop accepting new cases if they could not expect to be paid, potentially reigniting the state’s public defender crisis.
Last year, Kennebec County Justice Michaela Murphy heard arguments in a lawsuit filed two years ago by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Maine alleging that the state was doing irreparable harm by failing to provide legal representation in a timely manner.
Murphy argued at the time that failing to provide legal representation to all indigent defendants represents a “violation of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
With the now-approved funding appropriated by LD 2059, however, PDS will be able to continue issuing checks to its contracted attorneys, meaning that there will not be an interruption in payments for their services.
“We would be cutting checks next week without this funding, so it has really come right in time,” Maine Commission on Public Defense Services Executive Director Frayla Tarpinian told WGME.
Because of the bill’s emergency designation, this funding will be made available immediately.
This also meant, however, that LD 2059 needed to be approved by at least two-thirds of both chambers. The first roll call vote taken in the House fell largely along partisan lines, with most Republicans opposing the measure, but all subsequent hurdles were passed by voice vote, which qualified as meeting the two-thirds threshold.
Gov. Mills has also included an additional $25 million worth of funding for PDS in her proposed supplemental budget, which is now under consideration by lawmakers.
