Dozens of criminal cases are being dismissed in Massachusetts and other states as public defenders refuse to take on new cases until they get a pay raise.

As the courts are ground to a halt with a work stoppage, is it time for the state to change its public defender system?

BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts lawmakers on Thursday passed a funding bill that includes a pay raise for public defenders as part of an effort to end a legal crisis that led to dozens of cases being ...

More than 60 were in custody. The pay of public defenders is a national issue Massachusetts is just the latest state struggling to adequately fund its public defender system.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has approved a $20 hourly pay raise for public defenders in an effort to end their ongoing ...

In Massachusetts, full-time public defenders, who are salaried staff, typically cover about 20% of the state's caseload while court-appointed private attorneys, known as bar advocates, handle the ...

Jen O'Brien is an attorney leading the push to increase pay for Massachusetts public defenders, which starts at $65 an hour. JEN O'BRIEN: The state certainly prosecutes enough people.

BOSTON — Defendants are being released in Massachusetts in the wake of a prolonged dispute over pay for the state’s public defenders, and one of those set free was charged with a serious crime.

The state agency representing public defenders had proposed a pay increase from $65 an hour to $73 an hour over the next two fiscal years for lawyers in district court, an increase from $85 an ...

As of Tuesday, nearly 3,500 defendants did not have a public defender, a dashboard from the Oregon Judicial Department showed. Of those, about 143 people were in custody, some for longer than ...