Report from a Basement Classroom: Struggling with Tough Questions about Race

“I don’t trust the system,” a muscular black man laments to the blond-haired blue-eyed woman sharing an interview table with him. She deftly changes the subject to holes in the prosecution’s case. The air is stuffy in the windowless basement […]

Happiness is…Marketable

I recently read the NYT May 12th article, “Lawyers with Lowest Pay Report More Happiness” and like many public defenders, wasn’t surprised by the finding that public defenders are among the most satisfied of all law practitioners. I thought of places […]

The Limitation of Policy Fixes: Real Reform Requires That We Change How We Think About Justice

As the nation finally awakens to the reality of our broken criminal justice system, a long overdue conversation about how to reform it has emerged.  But the solutions being proposed are destined to fall short, as they focus exclusively on […]

Huge Bail Victory!

On June 3, 2015, the federal court in St. Louis, Missouri, issued an injunction ending the use of secured money bail in Velda City and a declaratory judgment affirming that the use of secured money bail schedules to detain impoverished people after […]

Judges gone wild, systems gone cold

The judge in Jackson, Mississippi kicks a public defender out of his courtroom.  When the Chief responds by filing a pleading in the Mississippi Supreme Court challenging his unlawful action, he retaliates by taking cases away from public defender’s office […]

Professor Norm Lefstein to Serve as NAPD Special Adviser

NAPD is pleased to announce that Professor Norm Lefstein has assumed the role of Special Advisor within its organizational leadership. A member of NAPD since the association’s founding, Professor Lefstein will advise the Steering Committee on issues of organizational focus, […]

NAPD Opposes DA-Conceived Capital Defense Oversight Commission

This article content was submitted by the NAPD Steering Committee in opposition of legislation pending in the Louisiana Legislature. We are the National Association for Public Defense (“NAPD”), a national organization of public defense professionals founded a little over 18 […]

In Support of Systems Builders

I want to write about the potential of NAPD’s Systems Builders Committee. The Committee is comprised of current and retired defender leaders, public defender board and/or commission members, and system advocates representing a range of experiences and perspectives on public defense […]

Footprints

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.– Pericles There are numerous watershed moments in every person’s career.  Times when you could have gone in one direction over […]

On the Heels of Ferguson and Baltimore, Public Defenders and the Pretrial Justice Institute Call for End to the Predatory Use of Money in the Criminal Justice System

From the NAPD and Pretrial Justice Institute Press Release, issued May 14, 2015. In the wake of the excessive and discriminatory use of court fees and money-based bail in Ferguson and Baltimore, the National Association for Public Defense (NAPD) issued […]