Public Defenseless

Today, Hunter is once again joined by former NACDL President Martin Sabelli to discuss the criminal charge that everyone is talking about, RICO. As with many laws on the books, RICO started out designed to target a specific group of people: leadership of the Mafia. Also like many laws on the books, it was written in such an ambiguous and wide manner that prosecutors could use it far beyond its int...

Despite being the bedrock of our criminal legal system, "the jury trial is an exceptional rather than a commonplace outcome." Today, Hunter is joined by Martin Sabelli and Nathan Pysno to discuss somethings leading to the erosion of the jury trial. Specifically, they discuss how harsh sentences enable coercive plea bargaining and enshrine the "trial penalty". Few if any other Constitutionally prot...

In the past few weeks, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis decided to abuse his powers once again as the head of state and remove an elected State Attorney. This time, the 9 th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Monique Worrell landed in Governor DeSantis' cross hairs. Today, Hunter is joined by Central Florida Criminal Defense Attorney Andrew Darling to discuss what happened. If you take the story that Go...

Trust between Public Defenders and the communities they serve has been a long running theme of the show. The benefits of such a trusting relationship seem obvious, but today, Hunter spoke with Wisconsin Public Defender, Alexander Kostal, to discuss an extremely important outcome from a trusting attorney/client relationship: increased opportunity for litigation. In order to push back against the ov...

In back-to-back years, the Sixth Amendment Center revealed that Public Defense in Detroit was failing. Both the contract and institutional Public Defender were failing to provide competent counsel in every case. For the largest city in Michigan, the future seemed dire. Then, the Neighborhood Defender Services extended their non-profit Public Defender Model to the city, and for the first time in a...

Recently, Hunter was a guest host on the Another Not Guilty Podcast, and he is happy to share that episode today as a bonus show!     The Another Not Guilty Podcast details true crime's forbidden stories of the criminal system from the insiders' perspective of public defenders told with a little humor, drama, and passion for criminal justice reform. Visit them at www.anothernotguiltypod.com    In...

Sometimes referred to as Civil Asset Forfeiture, today's episode is an examination of the legalized theft that is civil forfeiture. Joining Hunter to unpack the intricacies of this topic, is Dan Alban. In his role at the Institute for Justice, Dan is one of the people at the forefront of people pushing back against the practice that flips the concept of innocent until proven guilty on its head. As...

Whether you call it Jury Nullification or Conscientious Acquittal, today's episode is all about the fight to reinvigorate the jury trial and the independence of the jury. Joining Hunter to discuss is Clark Neily, Senior VP for Legal Studies at the CATO Institute. Before America was even a country, the power of a jury to acquit someone of a charge they were legally guilty of because the jury disagr...

A little less than a year ago, Hunter spoke with Alexandra Bailey of the Sentencing Project to explore why states like Oklahoma so readily punish the survivors of domestic violence. Today, Hunter returns to Oklahoma to speak with Colleen McCarty and Leslie Briggs from Oklahoma Appleseed to discuss their work in trying to push back against the expansion of the carceral state in Oklahoma. In particu...

In the state of Georgia, the Public Defender Counsel lacks independence from the Executive Branch. As a result, their ability to speak out on social issues is severely limited. For former Georgia Public Defender Devin Franklin, the inability to speak out against police brutality in the wake of the murder of George Floyd drove him out of a decade long career in Public Defense. For him, and for Hunt...

Crushing workloads. High Turnover Rates. Low Pay. This is not the first time these topics have been brought up on the show, but today, Hunter spoke with two Maryland Public Defenders, Edie Fortuna and Jose Teneza, to discuss how those factors drove the Public Defenders to unionize.     Guests: Edie Fortuna, Assistant Public Defender, Maryland Jose Teneza, Assistant Public Defender, Maryland     Re...

Today, Hunter spoke with two New York Criminal Defense Attorneys, Richard Willstatter and Stan Germán, to discuss the crisis at Rikers Island. For more than a decade, there has been a class action lawsuit against the city because of the inhumane conditions in the jails. Sadly, the calls for closure, reform, or receivership have continuously fallen on deaf ears. As a result, the death toll in Riker...

Today, Hunter is joined by Annie Morgan, a Criminal Defense Appeals Attorney with the Guantanamo Bay Military Commission Defense Organization, to continue to the story of Guantanamo Bay where John Baker left off. Once John had the defenders responsible for the al-Nashiri case move off, Annie Morgan and a new team of defenders tried to pick up the pieces. On today's episode, we dive deeper in the w...

Today, Hunter kicks off this week's theme of Guantanamo Bay coverage by speaking with BGen (Ret) John Baker. When John Baker took over as the lead defense counsel for the Military Commission Defense Organization at Guantanamo Bay, he could not imagine the abuse of power that he would go up against. From FBI informants being planted on the defense team, to classified surveillance of the conversatio...

  With every passing day, a new technology becomes available for police, prosecutors and the state to further side step the Fourth Amendment. On today's show, Hunter sat down with Dhruv Mehrotra, staff writer for Wired Magazine, to discuss the latest horrifying surveillance tech coming to a jurisdiction near you. Covenant Eyes started out as a way for couples and churches to "help" people fight th...

Continuing this weeks coverage of the family policing system, Hunter was joined by Annick Lenoir-Peek, a North Carolina Deputy Parent Defender. Just like Tuesday's episode with Josh, Annick walks us through the hypocrisy inherent to the family policing system, but Annick also demonstrates a practical way for attorneys at any level to push back. By zealously bringing cases through the appellate sys...

Today's episode kicks off these weeks focus on the family welfare system aka the family policing system. Hunter sat down with Josh Michtom, a senior assistant public defender in Juvenile representation. Despite the title, Josh primarily represents parents as the state attempts to take their children away. As with so much of our criminal legal system, the contours of the family policing system in C...

Today, Hunter spoke with Deepak Budwani, the Chief Financial and Administrative Officer of the Santa Barbara Public Defender Office to discuss how he was able to grow the office 80% in just five years. Long time listeners of the show will know the emphasis on data collection and data analysis, and Deepak is the model for why those things are a must for public defense. In just under 90 days, Deepak...

Today, Hunter spoke with Civil Rights Corps' Attorney Peter Santina to discuss their efforts in uncovering and challenging prosecutorial misconduct. From Alleghany County to San Francisco County, Peter and his team are those leading the charge in revealing the negligence, maleficence, and misconduct of prosecutors around the country. This episode, however, does offer a reminder that all of their a...

On previous episodes, we have talked about the importance of data collection and collaboration with outside organizations to turn that data into meaningful talking points for policy change. On today's show, Hunter was joined by three amazing data scientists from SMU's Deason Center, Dr. Andrew Davies, Dr. Victoria Smiegocki, and Shelby Sirivore, to discuss some of their interesting data analysis o...

On today's show, Hunter sat down with Cameron Blazer, the Circuit Public Defender in Charleston, South Carolina, to discuss the past, present, and future of Public Defense in the state. From the start of the show, Hunter has long wanted to discuss with more detail the South Carolina practice of non-attorneys serving as judges, but there is so much more to this episode than that. In an unusual turn...

It's no secret that the Public Defenseless Podcast firmly stands in the "abolish cash bail" camp. On today's episode, Hunter is joined by criminal defense attorney, Katie Yens, to demonstrate yet another reason why the practice must cease to exist. Despite, perhaps, good intentions of judges and prosecutors, the bond laws in Colorado allow for the bail bond industry to enrich themselves off the ba...

A little over a year ago, Hunter spoke with Rocky Ramirez about how a simple bit of no-code programming was able to cut down appointment times from nearly a week to less than half a day. Today, Hunter invited Rocky back on the show to discuss the steps he's taken over the past year in Bexar County to find tech solutions for the many issues with Public Defense. While the Managed Assigned Counsel sy...

Today, Hunter spoke with Randy Fiedler and Stacy Newman about the best ways to handle a challenging client. Whether it is due to mental illness, mistrust, or some other external factor, every public defender has at one point in time dealt with a client they would consider challenging. The question is then, what are the skills and best practices to foster the trusting relationship that is necessary...

Today, Hunter spoke with Patrick Crowley, Michael Naughton and Jonathan Sacks to talk through the attorney shortage crisis in rural America and what we can do to reverse the trend. While today's episode focuses a lot on what is happening in rural Michigan, make no mistake, this is a problem facing nearly every state in the country. As rural, small town America has declined over the past decades, i...