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Facing an attempted homicide charge for shooting a teenager a year ago, Stapleton was arrested and jailed.

He was initially appointed a public defender, who later had to withdraw from the case due to a conflict of interest. Public defenders cannot represent clients if there is a conflict, for example if a witness in the case is represented by the public defender’s office in another case.

When the public defender’s office was unable to find a private attorney willing to take the case after two months, the court appointed a county-funded attorney through a separate program for low-income defendants.

The experience in Stapleton’s case is not unique. Many defendants have been waiting for weeks or months for attorneys to be appointed, the delay affecting both defendants awaiting their day in court and victims frustrated by a wait for justice.

The log jam in cases has been caused, at least in part, by good intentions. In Wisconsin, attorneys for indigent defendants are provided by a dual system of public defenders employed by the state, and by private attorneys paid by the state to take cases when public defenders cannot.

Those private attorneys had been paid the same rate — $40 an hour — for a quarter century. When the legislature set that $40 rate 24 years ago, they were actually lowering it from a higher pay scale.

On Jan. 1, the rate will increase to $70 an hour, part of an agreement in the state’s most recent budget.

But lawyers who take a case before Jan. 1 will be paid at $40 for the duration of the case, and cases sometimes stretch on for a year or more. That has created an incentive for private attorneys to refuse cases until 2020.

Adam Plotkin, legislative liaison with the State Public Defenders Office, said three months wait is not surprising, adding “last year was the most acute time.” In some rural spots in the state, “the wait is even longer,” he said.

He said the increase to $70 an hour is pretty significant and should bring more attorneys to step forward in urban parts of the state, like Kenosha and Racine. In some parts of the state, he said, there aren’t even enough attorneys to make a list.

Karl Johnson, attorney manager with the Kenosha Public Defenders office, called the situation “a significant problem.”

What it comes down to, Plotkin agreed, is that it is “the interest of justice versus money.”

We could be holding an innocent person for months, he said.

What kind of justice is that?

We hope that happens for the many others who are forced to sit and wait because of money.