Former public defender testifies about excessive workload

DENVER (CN) — A former public defender who claims he was fired for reporting that he was saddled with too many cases told a Denver judge Monday about his 130-client caseload — and his realization that maintaining such a workload meant risking violating his professional code.

“Even when you’re in trial all day, you just keep trying,” Travis Weiner testified. “You’re at the office at 8:00 at night, you have 30 missed calls and a billion missed emails, and some people will say you should stay until 10:00.”

Before becoming an attorney, Weiner served in the Army, leaving in 2009 as a sergeant with a Purple Heart and shrapnel embedded in his neck from a tour in Iraq.

While reading a 2023 RAND report on the issue, Weiner calculated his workload was nearly triple what experts found an attorney could competently carry, and that to properly represent his clients, he’d need to work 12-hour days 365 days each year.

Weiner said it was impossible to review all of the police body camera footage turned over through discovery, but also impossible to advise a client without having seen it all.

“I was able to see what happened in a case where I was by chance able to go through all the discovery for one client, but I couldn’t do that for all the clients,” Weiner said.

“It’s a survival culture. The most serious cases are the ones you have to devote yourself to, and it’s seen as normal and natural that you can’t devote as much time to the less serious cases," Weiner said.

When he reported his fears to his supervisors, Weiner said he was told dropping cases wasn’t an option. While his supervisors offered to help him become “more efficient,” Weiner said the problem was systemwide and couldn’t be solved by letting a co-worker take one homicide case off his plate.

Eventually, Weiner chose to withdraw from three cases, prompting his supervisor to discipline and then fire him. Claiming violations of the State Employee Protection Act and his free speech rights, Wiener sued in November 2024.

In a motion to dismiss, state attorneys requested a so-called Trinity hearing to determine Weiner’s ability to overcome the government’s immunity to suit. In part, the state argued Weiner wasn’t disciplined for speaking out, but for going against his supervisor’s directive against dropping cases.

“The Office of the State Public Defender did not discipline Mr. Weiner because of any disclosures; instead, OSPD disciplined Mr. Weiner for withdrawing representation without a supervisor’s approval,” argued assistant attorney general Lauren Davison in opening.

“It was Mr. Weiner’s subordination that led to his discipline and termination,” Davison argued.

Weiner’s attorney, Charles Gerstein, asked Second Judicial District Judge Sarah Wallace to send the case to a jury.

“The question is whether Travis had a good faith belief to file his motions, and whether he made a good faith effort to inform his supervisor,” Gerstein, who practices with Gerstein Harrow in Washington, said.

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