Major funding for this podcast has been provided by Public Welfare Foundation and the Pulitzer Center.

The screwy thing of it, right, is you get so many cases that you just live under this constant fear that people are going to slip through the cracks.

And quite frankly, I know they do.

This is Jeff Esparsum. He's a public defender in Kansas City, Missouri, the cracks, and quite frankly, I know they do.

This is Jeff Esparsa.

He's a public defender in Kansas City, Missouri, and he's buried in cases.

I'm at 150% of my maximum possible ethical caseload, basically meaning that if I worked a 60-hour week, which would be a fairly modest week,

for the next year and a half and didn't get a single new case than I could do the bare minimum

to ethically represent the clients I currently serve.

Jeff's clients are people who are charged with crimes but who can't afford to pay a lawyer.

They all have their own stories, but right now, they're just stacks of case files

strewn across his desk.

So this right here is, I just pulled this. You can see, I'm really not putting on airs for you.

I just pulled this out of my mailbox. These are all of my new cases.

I have no idea what's going on with them.

Kansas City is the largest I have no idea what's going on with him.

Kansas City is the largest city in Missouri, and it sees all kinds of crime, but especially violent offenses.

In 2017, the year that Jeff started in this office,

the city had the fifth highest murder rate of major cities across the country.

This case is a first-degree robbery where a woman ended up being shot.

It also has one of the state's busiest public defender's offices.

In the two years since Jeff started working here, he's gotten used to carrying

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