Public Defenseless

For decades, activists, scholars, and attorneys decried the state of public defense in New York. Report after report uncovered a broken system that underpaid public defenders and contact attorneys alike as the state shirked its responsibility to adequately support the counties in their effort to provide counsel to the poor. Even after a landmark study, mandated by the state's chief justice, it wou...

Today on the show, Hunter spoke with Michael Smith, an Assistant Public Defender in Chattooga County, Georgia, to talk about the unique challenges he faces as a rural public defender. After college and law school took him away from his home in Chattooga, County, Michael Smith returned home with a new found understanding of the inequities his community faced.     As the only public defender in the...

 Over the last year of Public Defenseless, Hunter spent a lot of time speaking with Chief Public Defenders from commissions and state-wide offices around the country. This top down view of Public Defense is extremely valuable and will be something that you hear more of on the show, but Hunter also realized he neglected to get the voices of line public defenders on the show. Over the course of the...

A major theme of this show is empower regular people with the knowledge necessary to push back against the overreach of the state via police and prosecutors. That's why Hunter was so excited to bring you today's episode with a representative from the organization called Citizens Overseeing Police Oklahoma. The guest today is your everyday Oklahoman who is tired of the rampant corruption and abuse...

Across the country, outdated and disconnected data systems keep thousands of people stuck in prison or on community supervision long after they should technically be free. Today, Hunter spoke with Serena Chang, a product manager at Recidiviz, a tech nonprofit working to solve this problem and make the criminal justice system fairer, smaller, and more effective.   As discussed in the episode with J...

On this episode, Hunter spoke with Jason Tashea to discuss the exciting intersection of tech and the legal system. As the Director and Co-Founder of the Georgetown Judicial Innovation Fellowship, Jason is constantly thinking about ways to ethically integrate technology into the legal world. As an institution predicated on tradition, precedent, and intentionally inefficient legal protections, the l...

From the denial of basic healthcare needs to decades in solitary confinement, prisoners stuck in the Massachusetts prison system face near daily deprivation of basic human and Constitutional rights. Today, Hunter spoke with Elizabeth Matos to understand how her organization, Prisoners' Legal Services of Massachusetts, challenges this system of relentless brutality.     Guest : Elizabeth Matos, Exe...

While not a small county, Yolo County California does not have the size or resources to match the major metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, L.A., or Sacramento. Yet somehow, Tracie Olson, Chief Public Defender Yolo County, and her team at the Yolo County Public Defender Office are able to maintain a strong holistic public defense practice.   Despite a $16 million dollar budget shortfall...

Why are some state's public defense systems so strong while others are so weak?    This week, Hunter speaks for a second time with David Carroll, the Executive Director of the Sixth Amendment Center. David highlights a handful of reports that his organization conducted in an attempt to improve the public defense systems of many different states.   First, David talks about Oakland Michigan, a now s...

Since its inception, Supreme Court decisions play a terrifying role in controlling the lives of Americans. Few decisions in living memory now play a greater role than the overturning of Roe v Wade .     To understand the impacts of Dobbs v Jackson, Hunter is joined by three guests from the state of Louisiana. Gwyneth O'Neill is an associate at the law firm Schonekas, Evans, McGoey and McEachin. El...

Right now, a three-attorney public defender office in North Dakota has zero attorneys on staff. And with public defender turnover rates on the rise, the state makes it difficult to provide legal representation for all.   In this episode, Hunter speaks with Travis Finck, the Executive Director of The Commission on Legal Counsel for Indigents (CLCI). He brings with him an infectious optimism and dee...

For many, the hearing about the opioid epidemic invokes images deindustrialized towns in West Virginia and Kentucky, but it was actually Alabama with the highest rate of per capita prescription.     Today on the show, Hunter Spoke with Leah Nelson, Research Director at Alabama Appleseed, and Stacey Fuller, a Certified Recovery Support Specialist, to discuss the impacts of opioids and addiction in...

In this episode, Hunter is joined by two inspiring guests from Partners for Justice, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing support services to people facing criminal charges while helping public defenders protect people from incarceration and other criminal penalties.   Emily Galvin Almanza is the Founder and Co-Executive Director of Partners for Justice, as well as an advocate in the Ha...

Today, Hunter spoke with Richard Mauro, Executive Director of the Salt Lake City Legal Defender Association, to talk all things Utah Public Defense.   Not even a decade ago, Utah and Pennsylvania stood as the last two states who provided exactly zero dollars towards Public Defense. As expected, this created a patchwork system in the state that left places like Utah and Salt Lake County able to aff...

Most people believe that life sentences keep people safe, but the evidence actually points to the opposite. In fact, life sentences were never originally designed to last for life.     In this episode, Hunter speaks with two individuals from the Sentencing Project: Campaign Strategist to End Life Imprisonment Alexandra Bailey and Senior Research Analyst Nazgol Ghandnoosh.   They will share evidenc...

  Raha Jorjani is an Immigration Defense Attorney in Alameda County, home of California's first public defender Immigration Representation Unit. Because our immigration law is founded on the principle that deportation is a civil issue and not a criminal proceeding which, there are few immigration specific public defender units. This denies millions of people the basic right of public defense.    T...

Today, Hunter spoke with Alec Karakatsanis, Founder and Executive Director of Civil Rights Corps, for a discussion about dismantling America's punishment bureaucracy. With his work at Civil Rights Corps, Alec brought to light the immense human suffering caused by the punishment bureaucracy by highlighting the stories of people caught in it and then pushing massive class action lawsuits.   This mod...

When the whole family is involved, it can make all the difference.   In this episode, Hunter speaks with three inspiring individuals out of Family Representation New York—Parent Advocate Supervisor Teyora Graves-Ferrell, Social Work Supervisor Ysmerlyn Murshed, and Senior Staff Attorney Vasili Stotis.   Each one plays a very specific and important role within their organization, and they explain h...

Why do we punish people? What are the goals of punishment and the legal system? At some point in time, we stopped asking ourselves these questions and it led to a legal system that is disjointed, inconsistent, and unnecessarily cruel.   Today, Hunter spoke with Kaelen Perrochet, a Law Student at UCLA Law School, to dig through some of the philosophical underpinnings of any criminal legal system.  ...

Can a managed assigned council system be a workable solution to indigent defense problems?   Jim Bethke is the former executive director of the Texas Indigent Defense Commission and the current director of the Managed Assigned Counsel Office in San Antonio. In this episode, he talks about the system that he helped create and the areas he thinks still need work.    There are three main types of ind...

Can people incarcerated afford to wait for small, gradual change? What happens to the people incarcerated if the system breaks? What is the right balance between the needs of the current case vs the needs of the future case? How do Public Defenders counter the decades long strategy of the Conservative legal movement with their own strategy? All these questions, and more, are pondered by Hunter and...

For Public Defenders who serve in coastal areas, the story on toady's show will be all too familiar. As Hurricane Ian barrelled toward the Florida coast, a state of emergency was declared and evacuation plans started to come together, but as is almost always the case, no one thought of those incarcerated.   Today, Hunter spoke with Kathy Smith, Chief Public Defender in the 20 th Judicial District...

How can journalists and public defenders work together to bring awareness to the real issues plaguing our court system? Today, Hunter spoke with Maggie Shepard, Director of Communications at the New Mexico Law Offices of the Public Defender, to discuss how public defenders can use media relations to deepen their connection with the community they are working to protect.    A policy can only be eff...

When does a victim become a suspect? Very often, our legal system cares about someone's status as a victim when it allows the system to incarcerate someone. As soon as you stand in that goal, any harm done to you matters not.    On today's episode, Hunter spoke with Alexandra Bailey, Campaign Strategist to End Life Imprisonment at the Sentencing Project, to discuss the ways our legal system punish...

Today, Hunter sat down once again with Doug Wilson, Chief Public Defender in the Aurora Municipal Public Defender Office, to discuss what has unfolded in Aurora, Colorado over the past year. Often, people will ask the question, "Why do you think we don't fund Public Defender Offices the way we should?" While there are many potential answers to that question, this episode highlights one of the most...