Garth McCardle, public defender of San Juan County
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 1, 2026
By Darrell Kirk
Staff reporter
Garth McCardle, San Juan County’s newly appointed public defender, arrived on the islands on Feb. 2 — not as a stranger, but as someone returning to a place that had already changed his life once before.
His family purchased a home in the San Juan Islands in 1988, and he spent summers there, even living on the island for a couple of years in the early 1990s. A native of the suburbs of Los Angeles, McCardle has called many cities home — New York, Washington D.C., Seattle and most recently the San Francisco Bay Area — but something about these islands always called him back.
“This is also the island where I discovered my love of theater and Shakespeare. I did my first acting gig as an adult [with] the San Juan Community Theater,” he said.
Whether running Mount Finlayson or watching his three young boys build driftwood forts at Granny’s Cove, McCardle has found in the San Juans not just a job, but a home. He is married, his sons play Little League and on a cold morning not long after arriving, he was out at the ball field helping prepare it for the season — hands frozen, heart full.
But it is inside the courtroom where McCardle’s true calling comes into focus. With nearly 20 years of criminal defense experience, McCardle came to the law through politics. As a young idealist, he believed legislation could change the world for the better. Then he saw how disreputable politics could be behind the curtain, and that disillusionment pointed him toward something more immediate and more honest — standing beside people who had no one else to stand beside them.
“Public defense seemed a noble calling,” he says. “And it remains that to this day. I would say it’s a sort of a trait I felt I’ve always had. I root for the underdogs. It’s really that simple.”
His job, simply put, is to represent people charged with crimes who cannot afford a private attorney. Many of his clients live at or below the poverty line. Some have no mailing address. Some are living in tents. And a striking number of them are not hardened criminals — they are people battling mental illness or addiction.
“The criminal justice system is set up as a very simple organization or structure — if you break the law, the answer is jail,” he explains. “Which of course isn’t going to solve any of the problems.”
McCardle’s most urgent call to action is one that reaches beyond the courtroom entirely: fund mental health and substance abuse treatment. He is unequivocal. More county investment in these services, he argues, would reduce crime more effectively than any number of jail sentences. He encourages islanders to speak directly with their council members about directing funds toward treatment.
And when it comes to jury duty McCardle reframes it entirely.
“This nation was born being skeptical of the government,” he says. “It is the citizen juror who determines if the accusations of the government are true and the burden has been met.”
Jury duty, he insists, is not a burden. It is the price of freedom — and a small one at that.
