WA: 5th, 6th Amendments overwhelm harried prosecutor

Parity sounds nice and all, but it would seem that to one player in the Grant County criminal justice system, the reality of a new constitutionally sufficient public defender office is just unfair:

Prosecutor says office outgunned

Grant County Prosecutor John Knodell on Tuesday asked the county's board of commissioners to fund eight new positions in his office...

"I understand that there are essentially three public defenders, with some retained counsel (in juvenile court)," he said. "With the numbers of public defenders... we are simply outgunned..."

"My office is holding the line against the increased strengthening of the public defender system," he said.