Gideon Day Resources Now Online

Gideon Day (Public Defense Day) resources for 2018 are now on the MyGideon homepage.    Gideon Day (Public Defense Day) is an NAPD-supported initiative, but the concept and all of its energy comes from the thousands of public defense advocates-members […]

Idaho Public Defense Commission Releases Workloads Study Findings

Boise State’s Idaho Policy Institute, under contract with the State Public Defense Commission, has just completed the most comprehensive study of the public defense system in Idaho to date. Over the course of the past year, public defenders across Idaho […]

Announcing NAPD’s Mentoring Webinar

Interested in learning how to be a good mentor for a chief defender or what you can expect from having a mentor? Check out this webinar, "Assisting Chief Defenders: Stimulating Increased Awareness, Options, Capacity", on Monday, March 19th, and register […]

Enough

People who knew nothing attacked him in the strongest terms.   The President called him a “sicko,” and referred to him as a “sicko shooter.”   https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/22/health/trump-mental-illness-comments-bn/index.html?sr|EQUALS|twCNN022218trump-mental-illness-comments-bn0747PMVODtop.   NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch called him “an insane monster” who is “nuts” and […]

Sympathy for the Devil

Everyone who’s watched the news these past few days has seen Melisa McNeill put her arm around Nikolas Cruz, the 19 year-old young man charged with the most recent school massacre. Melisa is an assistant public defender in the homicide […]

Fines and Fees Win in Minnesota

Minnesota, like many states, have enacted idiotic pay-to-stay laws. Because Minnesota is Minnesota, our laws are slightly less idiotic because they require the sheriff to consider a person’s ability to pay before assessing the fees.  Unfortunately, many sheriffs just ignore […]

Seattle University’s Defender Initiative is Holding its 8th Annual Conference on Public Defense: Defenders – Effecting Change, for Clients and for the Courts

This year’s keynote speaker is Jeff Robinson, Deputy Legal Director National ACLU and Director, Trone Center for Justice, and former defender.Washington State has been a leader in public defense reform, with court rules limiting defender caseloads, Defender Standards requiring experience tied […]

Zen and the Art of Indigent Defense

A long time ago, in a place that probably never existed but was nevertheless very far away, there were, or maybe there weren’t, two monks traveling through a forest, as monks long ago were wont to do. Soon enough, they […]

Two

Two cases.  Two defendants.  Two judges.    Two cases.  Both sex cases.  One involved a student, a woman who had been raped.  She had been drunk during the incident. The defendant pled guilty to what he had done. When the […]

How We Represent Those People

In our latest podcast we sit down with retired Santa Clara County Public Defender Rod O'Connor. We talked all things public defense including what he does and doesn't miss about the work and the common questions we get at parties about the […]