Government,
Criminal
Apr. 24, 2018
It’s Public Defender, not Public Pretender
In searching for a new chief public defender, the L.A. Board of Supervisors should only consider candidates with substantial experience in holistic indigent defense.
L. Song Richardson
Dean and Professor
UC Irvine School of Law
The opinions here are her own and not necessarily those of UC Irvine School of Law or UCI.
When I was a public defender, my clients would often ask me, "Are you just a public pretender? How can I trust you?"
I understood my clients' distrust. The state -- through the pursuit of "tough on crime" politics and policies, "broken windows" policing methods, and overzealous prosecutions -- had disproportionately targeted and wreaked havoc on indigent communities of color, from which my clients overwhelmingly came. And we public ...
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