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Key Standards Positions & Statements May 27, 2020

Call to Action – Follow up to Statement on Independence of Public Defense Leaders and Programs

Call To Action (2020) re: professional and political independence must be structurally assured and actually honored for public defense programs to provide systematically meaningful representation.

NAPD_Call to Action re Policy Statement on Independence

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Independence

The nation’s public defenders call on bar leaders, judges, prosecutors, and people desirous of a constitutional legal system to support public defense independence and creation of nonpartisan Governing Boards constructed to ensure the independence of the public defense program and the independent representation of individual clients.

This call to action draws on findings issued in NAPD’s Statement on Independence of Public Defense Leaders and Programs.