Public Defender Discloses Video Evidence of Officers Planting Drugs; Demands Swift Action by Prosecutors and Thorough Review by Police

The Office of the Public Defender is concerned that Baltimore City prosecutors persist in pursuing cases involving officers depicted in body camera video footage planting drugs that resulted in a criminal arrest.    The body camera video shows three officers […]

Khaleef’s Story: How Excessive Court Costs Ruin Lives

                       Intern Aerin Hickey          Intern Connor Aberle       Khaleef with Nadeera University of Georgia        Wesleyan University “My primary focus in life is […]

Nashville PDO Forms Client Advisory Board

 “Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched, – -criticism of writers by readers, of government by those governed, of leaders by those led, — this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern […]

NAPD Amicus Committee Deserves Recognition

Two weeks ago, the NAPD Amicus committee filed its 30th amicus brief since forming in the summer of 2014. That brief, U.S. v Byrd, was filed in the 3rd Circuit and addressed this issue: Did the District Court err in […]

Budget Makers Act on Public Defender Workload Study

Public defenders in Missouri were the first to endure all the pangs and toils associated with undergoing a workload study. I put it in those terms because to suggest that it may have been without sacrifice for lawyers (who don’t […]

New Grants to Create Far West Texas Regional Public Defender and Mental Health Unit for El Paso Public Defender

The Texas Indigent Defense Commission recently awarded seven new discretionary grants totaling over $1.2 million to help Texas counties improve public defense services.   Indigent defendants in far West Texas will soon have a new resource. The Commission has awarded […]

Mass Incarceration: America’s New Apartheid

Racism may well be the biggest crime in the criminal legal system.  African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population.  Blacks are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites.  If present trends […]

Uptrust – Preliminary Feedback

I’ve been a Public Defender for 24 years, the last four as Chief Public Defender in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.  Like many of you, I think there are certain parts of the criminal justice system that are not only unjust, but […]

Public Defender Launches Unit to Combat Booking Bias

Police booking charges play an outsized role in creating the San Francisco justice system’s dramatic racial disparities, a new study reveals, prompting San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi to announce today the formation of a team to scrutinize the early […]

Podcast: Cosby Trial, Sentencing of Lauren Kirk Coehlo, and the Trial for Philando Castile

Aider and Abetter, a pdocast produced by me and my public defender coleague, Avi Singh, has released another episode. In this episode, we break down the Bill Cosby trial, the sentence of Lauren Kirk-Coehlo (the woman who vandalized a Davis, CA […]