Executive Session on Public Defense (ESPD)

One of the key issues that we discussed at ESPD, which met between 1999 and 2001, was how to organize and reposition the "industry" of indigent defense. In the first two meetings, we asked our members to think about identifying areas where defenders are creative, provide public value, and exhibit some real competence outside of their traditional roles. In time, we hope to link these areas of competence to something that people on the outside care about -- and present it in a way that people take notice. Defenders need more support from the political arena and the general public -- but first, they must change internally or within the defender culture.

The goal of this Executive Session, like others before it, was not to produce one final report; but instead, to motivate practitioners to return to their respective offices and try out new ideas presented in ESPD discussions. Members were asked to contribute to short publications that will eventually be distributed (in print and on this site in our list of resources) to others in practice, as well as potential (untapped) constituencies for public defense.

(click on photo to see a larger version with members identified)

We have carefully selected a group of talented defense practitioners and managers as well as people who are not defenders. We highly value this latter group because they provide different perspectives and creative approaches to the challenging work of public defense. (We sometimes refer to these members as our "leavenors" because they provide balance to the conversations among defenders.) Among the "leavenors" we have a prosecutor, a journalist, a former police chief, and a social worker.

Members of the Executive Session on Public Defense:

William Bratton, President, The Bratton Group, New York, New York
Ann Christian, Indigent Defense Services Division, Oregon State Court Administrator's Office
Cait Clarke, Project Manager, Executive Session on Public Defense, Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management
Beth Davis, Former State Defender and Executive Director, Mississippi Public Defender Commission, Jackson, MS
Tony Fabelo, Executive Director, Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council
Nancy E. Gist, Former Director, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice
Angela Glover-Blackwell, President, PolicyLink, Oakland, California
Daniel Greenberg, President and Attorney-in-Chief, The Legal Aid Society, New York, New York
Francis X. Hartmann, Executive Director and Senior Research Fellow, Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management
Phyllis Hildreth, Deputy Secretary, Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice
Mary Hoban, Chief Social Worker, Office of the Chief Public Defender, State of Connecticut
Michael P. Judge, Chief Public Defender, County of Los Angeles
John P. Kretzmann, Co-Director, Asset-Based Community Development Institute, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University
Michael P. Lawlor, State Representative, State of Connecticut General Assembly
Carlos J. Martinez, Chief Assistant Public Defender, Dade County (Florida) Public Defender's Office
Mark H. Moore, Daniel and Florence V. Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice Policy and Management, John F. Kennedy School of Government
James R. Neuhard, Director, Michigan State Appellate Defender's Office
Leonard E. Noisette, Executive Director, Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem
Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
William Ritter, District Attorney, Denver, Colorado
Ellen Schall, Martin Cherkasky Professor of Health Policy and Management, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University
Bryan Shaha, Office of the Alternate Defense Counsel, Greeley, Colorado
Robert L. Spangenberg, President, The Spangenberg Group
Robin Steinberg, Executive Director, The Bronx Defenders
Mark Stephens, District Public Defender, Knox County Public Defender's Office, Knoxville, Tennessee
Christopher E. Stone, President and Director, Vera Institute of Justice
Randolph N. Stone, Clinical Professor of Law and Director, Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, University of Chicago Law School
Kim Taylor-Thompson, Professor of Clinical Law, New York University School of Law
Jo-Ann Wallace, Chief Counsel, National Legal Aid and Defender Association
Henry Weinstein, Legal Affairs Writer, Los Angeles Times

Public Defense Resources:

New York University Review of Law & Social Change,
vol. 29 (1), 2004
(a special issue containing the complete writings of the Executive Session on Public Defense)

Foreword by Nancy Gist
Introduction by Cait Clarke
"From Day One": Who's in Control as Problem Solving and Client-Centered Sentencing Take Center Stage? by Cait Clarke and James Neuhard
The Best Defense Is No Offense: Preventing Crime Through Effective Public Defense by Mark H. Moore, Michael P. Judge, Carlos J. Martinez, and Leonard Noisette
Alternative Strategies for Public Defenders and Assigned Counsel by Mark H. Moore
Bolder Management for Public Defense: Leadership in Three Dimensions by Cait Clarke and Christopher Stone
Cultural Revolution: Transforming the Public Defender's Office by Robin Steinberg and David Feige
What Policy-Makers Need to Know to Improve Public Defense Systems by Tony Fabelo
Taking It to the Streets by Kim Taylor-Thompson
Keeping Gideon's Promise: A Comparison of the American and Israeli Public Defender Experiences by Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. and Yoav Sapir

Public Defense: Papers from the Executive Session on Public Defense
(published by the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice)

Bulletin #1--Bolder Management for Public Defense: Leadership in Three Dimensions by Cait Clarke and Christopher Stone (November 2001)
Bulletin #2--What Policymakers Need to Know to Improve Public Defense Systems by Tony Fabelo (December 2001)
Bulletin #3--Cultural Revolution: Transforming the Public Defender's Office by Robin Steinberg with David Feige (August 2002)

Other papers written for ESPD:

Alternative Strategies for Public Defenders and Assigned Counsel by Mark Moore (added February 2003)

"The Best Defense Is No Offense": Preventing Crime through Effective Public Defense by Mark H. Moore, Michael P. Judge, Carlos J. Martinez, and Leonard Noisette (April 2002)

Clarke, Cait. "Community Defenders in the 21st Century: Building on a Tradition of Problem-Solving for Clients, Families and Needy Communities." United States Attorneys' Bulletin 49, no.1 (January 2001)

Office of Justice Programs Indigent Defense Resources

Improving Criminal Justice Systems Through Expanded Strategies and Innovative Collaborations--Report of the OJP National Symposium on Indigent Defense (1999)

Bureau of Justice Statistics Indigent Defense Publications:

Steven K. Smith and Carol J. DeFrances, Indigent Defense, Bureau of Justice Statistics Selected Findings, February 1996 (NCJ-158909).
Carol J. DeFrances and Marika F.X. Litras, Indigent Defense Services in Large Counties, 1999, National Survey of Indigent Defense Systems, 1999, November 2000 (NCJ-184932).

National Defender Leadership Project at the Vera Institute of Justice

National Legal Aid & Defender Association

American Bar Association Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants (SCLAID)

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Indigent Defense Counsel

National Equal Justice Library, Washington College of Law, American University

ESPD is funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) in the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) at the Department of Justice. Current BJA leaders are interested in identifying ways to reposition the indigent defense industry and strengthen the role of public defenders, assigned counsel, and contract lawyers to provide more balance in the system.

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