Changing the Narrative: How Can You Defend Those People?

How can you defend those people?  In 26 years as a public defender, my answer to this question has changed. Right out of law school I would respond with a righteously indignant lecture about the Constitution. Then came my avoidance […]

Educational Justice

In 2013, our nation’s juvenile courts handled approximately 1.1 million juvenile delinquency cases.  This number of children represents more than the total population within states like Alaska, the District of Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, or Wyoming.  Would we simply discard a […]

Perseverence & Justice

On December 8, 2015, William Justin Graham walked out of the Dixon Correctional Institute in Jackson, Louisiana, and into the arms of his mother and family. Justin had been incarcerated for seven years, first at the St. Tammany parish jail […]

Changes to the NAPD Steering Committee

NAPD is governed by a Steering Committee of 21 people.  This committee includes people who have exhibited an interest in NAPD from our first days at Dayton Law School in September of 2013, as well as all the chairs of our […]

Oh, the places we’ve gone, the places we’ll go

For much of my life, I wake up early on New Year’s morning and write in my journal.  I look at the entry from the year before and look over what I intended to accomplish.  Then I set out hopes and dreams […]

Client Centered Representation in its Truest Form

Mark Smith will be celebrating Christmas with his family this year.  On 23 December 2015, the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department handed down a decision suppressing the evidence that had been seized by the police against Mr. Smith.  This decision […]

Public Defenders Make Justice Happen

It almost sounds like the stuff of blockbusters. In Orange County, CA, in geographic proximity to the stages of Hollywood but another world altogether, 23 months of painstaking research and analysis has found an enduring moment in the limelight. Public […]

Alaska Gets Approved for CLE for NAPD Webinars

The Alaska Public Defender Agency has 13 offices representing indigent clients across the State of Alaska.  Nine of our offices are in locations not accessible by road and require travel, in and out, by plane or boat.  Travel for all […]

Litigate cases in the courtroom – Not the Hallways of the Courthouse

“Confidence turned into cockiness which came across as just plain arrogance” – or something like that – said the Assistant District Attorney during her closing argument when describing our expert witness. The good doctor (as we call them down here […]

Defending From Beyond the Grave

Let’s be clear. When I talk about lawyering from beyond the grave, I don’t mean becoming a zombie and sucking out the brains of prosecutors. Nor do I mean dragging heavy chains above the bedrooms of certain judges while they’re […]