A former Colorado public defender fired for speaking out about his overwhelming caseload filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Colorado Office of the State Public Defender.

Travis Weiner was ousted in February for revealing what he said is “an open secret” among public defenders, not only in Colorado but across the country. 

He believes that caseloads have become so relentless, that the situation threatens the Constitutionality of their clients who are at risk of falling through the cracks. 

Weiner, a five-year veteran of the Colorado Office of the State Public Defender’s Weld County Office, said in in interview with The Denver Gazette he worked nights, weekends, and holidays representing indigent people. After several years, he started feeling that the workload was so consuming, he was not providing effective zealous representation to some of his clients.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Denver District Court, contends that when Weiner brought his concerns to his boss, she told him: “This is not going to go anywhere.” When he pressed the issue, the response was that it was “not up for debate,” according to the lawsuit. 

When he was fired in late February, he was handling more than 100 active felony cases, which he said is not an uncommon case load among his colleagues.

“It is unacceptable if one innocent client in 1,000 is pleading guilty and getting a worse sentence because public defenders don’t have time to get proper mitigation together,” said Weiner. “At the end of the day, it is something that was no longer morally legally, or ethically acceptable to me and it’s not fair to our clients.”

The former Army sergeant, who was twice deployed in Iraq and went to law school when he returned, accepted a new position as a public defender with New Mexico’s state system. 

Weiner said that when he told his bosses that his clients deserved better and that he was going to file motions to withdraw from the case, his boss told him that she would prevent him from doing it, according to the lawsuit.  

In December 2023, he filed two motions with a 19th Judicial District judge to withdraw from two cases due to his workload. His supervisors withdrew those motions and transferred his cases. Weiner “continued his work,” the lawsuit states, and did not attempt to withdraw from any other cases. 

In early February, the OSPD’s computer systems crashed, making it even harder for attorneys to access discovery and other files. Due to the cyberattack, one of Weiner’s colleagues made a motion to withdraw from a case, but that employee “received no disciplinary action of any kind,” according to the lawsuit. 

Seeing that, Weiner went before the court to request a special hearing to also withdraw from a case because of the cyber attack. The lawsuit states that when he emailed his supervisor about his plans, she placed him on administrative leave on Feb. 21.

Five days later, he was fired. The reason for his firing, his termination letter stated, was “non-compliance with the directives of your supervisor and the expectations set in the corrective action issued to (Weiner),” according to the lawsuit. 

Weiner insists that in filing the motions to withdraw, he was not abandoning clients. He alerted the court to “serious ethical concerns” because he felt he had a Constitutional duty to effectively represent indigent people. 

“Unrelenting caseload”

James Hardy, a spokesman for the Defenders Union of Colorado, said the “unrelenting caseload” means that attorneys feel they are constantly treading water. 

He explained the problem is getting worse in part due to a new law enforcement tool that has exploded the public defenders’ discovery database: body-worn camera footage.

“Seven years ago, we didn’t have the body-worn camera footage,” said Hardy.

Megan Ring, the head of the public defender’s office, raised similar concerns about body-worn camera footage with lawmakers in early 2024, calling it a key driver of the increased workload along with phone recordings and data in criminal prosecutions.

“We’ve seen a 4,500% increase in discovery since 2016,” she said last January. “Body-worn cameras have been phenomenal. We need to have that. But it is so much data.”

In her 2025-2026 OSPD budget request to the Colorado state legislature, Ring referred to a “dramatic growth in media files through the discovery process.” 

She added that though costs associated with police body-worn cameras are increasing, they are now fundamental and represent the largest portion of that growth. 

Ring did not respond to a request for comment from The Denver Gazette. 

“Something has to change”

Weiner’s experience with the Colorado OSPD won’t deter him from his passion defending poor people who cannot afford representation. 

Though he earned a Purple Heart defending the U.S. in Iraq, he feels that  this is the most important work he’s ever done. He knows that some people might disagree with him, but in his mind, “public defenders are true patriots trying to safeguard the constitutional rights of some of our most poor and disadvantaged citizens who are targeted by the police.” 

The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages also “declaratory relief in the form of declaration” that OSPD violated Weiner’s Claim Resolution Settlement Agreement and Constitutional rights.    

Mostly, Weiner wants to see a more effective system.

“Something has to change. That is not going to happen with this system unless the leaders of the system speak truth,” he said. “No mixed messages. Call a problem what it is and go forward.”