Grant County creates public defender's department

EPHRATA — Grant County is changing public defense into a county department.

Grant County commissioners hired Rafael Gonzales to lead the Grant County Department of Public Defense.

Gonzales led a similar department in Benton and Franklin counties before accepting the position with Grant County.

Gonzales will replace Alan White, the lead supervising attorney, who is still working with the county until his contract ends this year. Unlike White, Gonzales is a county employee.

Commissioner Cindy Carter said this allows the commissioners to have more overall control of the department and allows them to keep expenses down.

“(Gonzales) actually has run a public defense office,” she said. “It would nice for the commissioners to not be as involved with the public defender’s office … Ray’s done this before. It’s been a steep learning curve for us. Hopefully with what the commissioners have learned and with Ray in this position, we can continue to provide a superior quality of defense.”

Gonzales’ goal for the public defender’s system is to provide the best service for the client and get the best result possible. He said the county has pursued this goal.

“I think that this office is the next step,” Gonzales said.

The county is in the process of converting an office building at 238 W. Division St. in Ephrata into the central office with room for investigators, office staff and the attorney department. He said there wasn’t room in the courthouse for the new agency.

“We are set to open the doors on March 1,” he said.

Gonzales is also looking to replace four felony defense attorneys who signed contracts to work in Okanogan County. He said he is looking to hire them as county employees. While none of the five remaining contracted attorneys applied for the positions, Gonzales said the department received several applications.

“The present plan is to bring in felony (attorneys) first,” he said. “The people in felonies don’t do anything else … They will be county employees.”

He said it was hard to tell whether making the public defenders county employees would save the money because contract attorneys need to worry about paying taxes, insurance and overhead costs.

Having a central office for defense attorneys will increase the ability for different departments to be able to reach the public defenders and increase their accountability, he said.

While there will be attorneys employed by the county, he said there will still be contracted attorneys.

“The public defense department is reactionary,” he said. “If there is a substantial increase in the amount of cases that would have an effect (on how many attorneys are needed.) We are dependent on what happens in the prosecutor’s office.”