ROCHESTER (AP) — Public defenders throughout the state are straining under growing case loads as years of budget cuts have thinned their ranks, but the problem may be worst in the 3rd Judicial District in southeastern Minnesota.

There, Chief Public Defender Karen Duncan has asked Steele County District Judge Casey J. Christian to remove public defenders from 45 open cases, a first for Minnesota. The hearing was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s simply that we don’t have anybody we can assign,” Duncan said. “I find people sleeping on the couch of our Owatonna office because they’ve worked all night, and they’re catching a nap before court. … Everyone recognizes we’ve got a bad situation here.”

The situation is the culmination of statewide issues that have been building for years. Tougher sentences, new laws every year and increasingly complex cases have thrust poor defendants before the courts for longer periods, piling work on the state public defense system even as it experiences back-to-back budget cuts.

Karin Sonneman, Winona County’s only full-time public defender, made headlines last year for simultaneously juggling 250 open cases, most of them felonies. National standards recommend that defenders handle no more than 150 felony cases — per year.

“We’re down to about 50 percent of the public defenders for what we need right now,” said the district’s chief judge, Robert Benson, who is based in Fillmore County. “That’s not absorbable. We can’t absorb it. It’s bad all over the state, but the 3rd District is especially bad.”

Experts say the shortage hurts more than just the defendants.

“As cases get old, witnesses forget,” said Judge Jeffrey Thompson, who is based in Winona County. “Witnesses move out of state. Defendants aren’t held accountable.”

And by law, accused criminals who exert their constitutional right to a speedy trial could walk free if an attorney isn’t available to represent them.