On the 48th Anniversary of In Re Gault

Many people who follow the legal system can identify a few United States Supreme Court decisions that profoundly impacted society or some segment of it. Most people know about Rowe v. Wade, and even schoolchildren know about Brown v. Board of Education. Public […]

Angry

I am angry. I tried not to focus on Baltimore and Freddie Gray, but when asked to connect the continued devaluing of black and brown lives to mass incarceration, I could no longer just focus on the work without focusing […]

Any One of Our Clients

Freddie Gray could have been any one of our clients. As the Chair of of the National Association of Sentencing Advocates, I urge you to take a moment to read his story. However, if you work in the criminal defense […]

No case is too small

When I started as a Kentucky public defender back in 1977, I was initially an appellate lawyer for three years, and then in a unit that among other things trained, oversaw local assigned counsel, and handled capital cases.  Thereafter, I opened […]

Executive Leadership Institute

Valparaiso University Law School is thrilled to be the host to the National Association for Public Defense's 2015-2016 trainings.  We believe in the commitment of our justice system to effective representation of the poor, and look forward to working with […]

Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil

Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray. How many more instances of police violence do we need to witness?  How many young black men will die?  How many stories of physical abuse at the hands of the […]

Oh, the Things You Will Learn

I was a relatively young chief defender, having been appointed Public Advocate by the Kentucky Governor several years before.  I went from running a small trial office in Richmond, Kentucky, to being the chief defender over the statewide public defender system.  I […]

What does it take to face the truth?

Ask yourself why it takes Mike Brown’s killing, 215 days of protests,  federal and state class action lawsuits, the Department of Justice, and proposed legislation for many of us to even begin to accept the possibility that our governmental entities, our […]

2014: Education Recap

This content appeared in the 2014 NAPD Annual Report. It is submitted as an article by NAPD member Amanda Mowle. In its first year, NAPD offered 43 online webinars for public defenders and public defense professionals. Nearly 2,500 members watched these […]

2014 in Review: Ending Excessive Workloads

From the NAPD 2014 Annual Report. Submitted by Dawn Deaner. Excessive workloads, caused by insufficient public defense resources, are the most serious and urgent threat to the delivery of constitutional defense services for public defender clients in America today.  In virtually […]