Webinars

• Defenders Becoming DAs: Unpacking the Tension in Our Community
   

  On January 27th, 2022, NACDL partnered with the National Association for Public Defense (NAPD), Gideon’s Promise and the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) to host a conversation about public defense, elected prosecutors, and the power to transform the criminal legal system. The discussion featured Professor Angela J. Davis, Distinguished Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law; Jonathan Rapping, Founder & President, Gideon’s Promise; and Manohar Raju, San Francisco Public Defender; and Akhi Johnson, Acting Director, Reshaping Prosecution, Vera Institute for Justice. 

  WEBINAR RESOURCES

  • Transforming America’s Criminal Justice Landscape Must Include Public Defender Overhaul, WDET, May 26, 2021. 

  • A New Generation of Prosecutors is Leading the Charge to Reimagine Public Safety, Data for Progress, November 2021. 

  • For the People: A Conversation with Larry Krasner, Brennan Center for Justice and John Brademas Center of NYU, May 25, 2021. 

  • Johnson, Akhi, What’s in a Name? A Small Step Prosecutors Can Take to Build a More Humane System,Vera Institute of Justice, July 24, 2020.

  • Davis, Angela J., Reimagining Prosecution: In Search of the True Progressive, 3(1) UCLA Criminal Justice Law Review (2019).  

  • Davis, Angela J., The Progressive Prosecutor: An Imperative for Criminal Justice Reform, Fordham Law Review Online 87, 8 (2018).  

  • Rapping, Jonathan, The Power to Transform is Stronger than the Power to Punish: Public Defenders are the Key to Equal Justice, Los Angeles Public Interest Law Journal, Vol. 6 (2017).  

  • Rapping, Jonathan, Who’s Guarding the Henhouse? How the American Prosecutor Came to Devour Those He is Sworn to Protect, Washburn Law Journal, Vol. 51 (2012).   

  • Motion For Justice  

  • Zealous

  • Interrupting Criminalization

  ​

• Race and Public Defense (SCJN 2021)
   

  When people think of public defense, they often think of it as a service provided in the context of criminal representation.  However, historically lawyers who represent indigent defendants have sometimes served a hybrid function as both legal advocates and community organizers.

  • Kenitra Brown, Founding Board Member & Criminal Justice Committee Co-Lead, Power in Action; Staff Attorney and Director of Engagement, The Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center
  • Emily Coward, Project Attorney, North Carolina Racial Equity Network, UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government
  • Johanna Jennings, Founder & Executive Director, The Decarceration Project
  • Kimberly O'Neil, CEO, Giving Blueprint; Founding Director, Power in Action
  • Moderated by: Monica Milton, Public Defense Counsel, NACDL
     

  See Related Materials

• Race + Criminal Legal System: Public Defense
  
  A discussion with Matthew Clair, PhD of Stanford University as we dissect his recent book Privilege and Punishment: How Race and Class Matter in Criminal Court (Published by Princeton University Press, November 2020), moderated by Travis County Chief Public Defender Adeola Ogunkeyede and joined by Porsha-Shaf’on Venable, Supervising Attorney at the Bronx Defenders and Director of Membership for the Black Public Defender’s Association.

  Related Resources

  • Privilege and Punishment: How Race and Class Matter in Criminal Court by Matthew Clair
  • Matthew Clair and Amanda Woog, Courts and the Abolitionist Movement, 110 Cal. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2022)
  • Unequal Before the Law: How did we end up with our current system of public defenders? by Matthew Clair, The Nation (December 14, 2020)
  • Alexis Hoag, Black on Black Representation, 96 NYU L. Rev. (forthcoming 2021)
  • Shaun Ossei-Owusu The Sixth Amendment Façade: The Racial Evolution of the Right to Counsel, 167 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1161 (2019)
  • Do Public Defenders Spend Less Time on Black Clients?, by Maurice Chammah, The Marshall Project (May 2, 2016) (there are some studies, etc. within this article to look at as well)
  • Andrea Lyon, Racial Bias and the Importance of Consciousness for Criminal Defense Attorneys, 35 Seattle U. L. Rev. 755 (2012)
  • L. Song Richardson and Phillip A. Goff, Implicit Bias in Public Defender Triage, 122 Yale L.J. (2013)
  • Gonçalves, Walter, Narrative, Culture, and Individuation: A Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Race-Conscious Approach to Reduce Implicit Bias for Latinxs, 18 Seattle J. Social Just. 333 (2019)
  • Race Matters: The Impact of Race on Criminal Justice (2017) (free video content)
  • Race Matters II: The Impact of Race on Criminal Justice (2019) (free video content)
  • Race Matters III: The Intersection of Race and Criminal Justice (2020) (recorded CLE product)
  • Black Public Defender Association, follow on Twitter: @BPDA_Justice
  • Principles for Creating Sustainability in Public Defense, National Association for Public Defense (March 2021)

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Public Defense in The Champion

• Public Defense: Right to an attorney only goes so far. Our war on crime leaves injustice in its wake

  Americans’ right to legal counsel protects all of us against the government’s power to lock us away, confiscate our possessions, and deny us the ability to earn a living.

  Six decades after the Supreme Court’s decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, the promise of that ruling remains unfulfilled.

• Book Review: Free Justice by Sara Mayeux

  This month Patrick Boylan reviews Free Justice: A History of the Public Defender in Twentieth-Century America by Sara Mayeux.

• The Rule’s All Right

  Defend the Confidentiality of Financial Affidavits Required for Representation Under the Criminal Justice Act

  Criminal Justice Act Form 23 (financial affidavit) is a confidential document. Some judges have concluded that CJA Form 23 should be a public document. Federal public defender Stephen Sady writes that the defense bar should reject any diminishment of the privacy protections in Rule 49.1.

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