Public Defenseless

When most in the Public Defender world think about the Bronx Defenders, they think of an office at the forefront of imagining a new path forward for Public Defense. Despite this, the Bronx Defenders…

Today, Hunter sat down with Mary Ann Scali (Executive Director, Gault Center) and HyeJi (Senior Youth Defense Counsel, Gault Center), to discuss the legacy of the Supreme Court Case in re Gault and …

Today, Hunter was joined once again by Jane Fox (Legal Aid Society New York) and Kyle Morris (Nashville Public Defender Office) to discuss all things student debt forgiveness. Last time they were on…

Today, Hunter spoke with Elbert Aull, a Public Defender from King County Washington and chairman of the Public Defender Union’s Political Action Committee to discuss the vital role the union played …

Across the country, a movement of so called progressive prosecutors has become a focal point of political commentary around the criminal legal system. Today, Hunter spoke with three Chief Public Def…

Today, Hunter spoke with James McDermott and Paul Chambers, two Public Defenders from the Far West Texas Office, to discuss their vision for a better model for Public Defense Delivery. According to …

Today, Hunter sat down with Alexandra Pray, Deputy Public Defender in San Francisco and Board Member of the Public Defender Union, to discuss the unique arrangement the City Attorneys, Prosecutors, …

Today, Hunter spoke with Diego Alcala, a criminal defense attorney in Puerto Rico, to better understand the challenges the island faces in the criminal legal system. From years of experience as a cr…

“Well I grew up poor and I didn’t go off committing crimes!” Arguably, this is the most common response those that work in the field of mitigation hear when they are trying to explain what mitigatio…

If you spend anytime watching news in the past 3 years, you have likely heard about San Francisco. Normally, that conversation revolves around the state of public safety in the city, and often, it i…

For more than one-third of a Americans, there is a record of their interaction with the criminal legal system. These records and the bureaucracy that controls them help make up a powerful paper pris…

Today, Hunter spoke with David Siegel, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Law and Social Responsibility at New England Law, to discuss the ethical and social obligations of attorneys. S…

Today, Hunter spoke with Felicia Tempel, Senior Investigator in the Barron County, Wisconsin Public Defender Office. As with all of the episodes covering a smaller Public Defender Offices, today’s s…

Today, Hunter sat down with Lindsay Bendell, LCSW Forensic Social Worker & Mitigation Specialist, to discuss the importance of non-capital mitigation. The concept of mitigation is a commonly known p…

Last week, Hunter spoke with LA County Chief Public Defender Ricardo Garcia to discuss the state of Public Defense in LA. Today, Hunter sat down with two Public Defenders, Garret Miller and Brooke L…

In theory, the criminal legal system is designed to find the truth of a matter. In reality, the legal system has been sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally constructed to be as effic…

More than 100 years ago, the first Public Defender Office opened in LA County thanks to the dedication and hard work of Clara Foltz. From that point on, the office grew into the largest office in th…

Far too often, the injustices of our legal system go without media attention. This is exceptionally true when it comes to media coverage of the failings of Public Defense. Thankfully, there are a fe…

When you hear the phrase “Bill of Rights”, you like envision the first 10 amendments of the U.S. Constitution. You may conjure up the many individual liberties that are protected by that bill of ri…

60 years ago, Clarence Gideon changed the legal landscape of America forever. Thanks to his self-written petition to the Supreme Court, it was finally recognized at the federal level that any person…