Public Defenders Help Protect Us All

Last week I was busy giving talks throughout the area. I spoke at my fundraiser on Bird Key, at a televised "debate" with one of my opponents, Ron Filipkowski, at a candidates forum sponsored by the Democratic Executive Committee, to a Rotary club at El Conquistador in south-west Manatee county, to the North River Democratic Club in Parrish, and to a hundred or so people at the Sarasota Democratic Club. What am I usually talking about?

I typically begin by telling the story of Clarence Gideon, as most people are unaware that the right to court appointed counsel in criminal cases is of relatively recent vintage. (To watch me tell this story, go to my main web-page at www.Adam4pd.info ) It is important to remember that our country was founded on the principle that individual rights must always be respected by the government. But it is one thing to have these rights and an entirely different matter to give these rights meaning. If you are charged with a crime, the charging document reads “The State of Florida” versus YOU and that is exactly what it feels like. The government has essentially unlimited investigative resources that it can marshal to build its case, but the individual citizen may have no resources at all. This is where the Public Defender comes in.

The supreme job of the Public Defender is to stand up for the individual client, to represent their interests, and to let others do the judging. The Public Defender must above all be client centered and be willing to stand next to the individual that the rest of the world has already condemned. For if you do not, if the Public Defender judges his or her client, if the Public Defender marches in lockstep with the government, then this is how wrongful convictions happen and this is how the liberties and freedoms of us all are eroded.

In the past decade, we have all become aware of the problem of wrongful convictions. We have seen one big case after another where people have been convicted of the most serious crimes imaginable in our society and served years in prison, only to have it later discovered that they were innocent all along. We feel for the individual and the lost time that can never be given back to them, but these stories also shake our confidence in our very system of justice. For do we truly protect public safety when we have a rush to judgment that results in a wrongful conviction and means that the real perpetrator is never apprehended? Of course not, which is why we as citizens should always be skeptical, and maintain the attitude of “prove it.”

Perhaps the finest quote ever about Public Defenders came from Judge Gersten in a Florida case from 1991. He said:

"Public Defenders stand alone, armed only with their wits, training and dedication. Inspired by their client's hope, faith and trust, they are the warriors and valkyries of those desperately in need of a champion. Public Defenders, by protecting the downtrodden and the poor, shield against the infringement of our protections, and in reality, protect us all."