Gideon’s Promise and Peril

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This Friday, October 11th, Massachusetts has the opportunity to get a two-for-one punch. An all day free conference will take place at Harvard Law School's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice called "Gideon's Promise and Peril: Meeting the Mandate for Indigent Defense."

The day includes a showing of the amazing documentary, Gideon's Army, about Georgia law professor, Jonathan Rapping’s Southern Public Defender Training Center, known as "Gideon’s Promise." The film takes us through the lives of some of our hardest working public defenders. With often 150 cases at a time and a salary of not much more than $40,000, they seek to help the indigent get a fair shake in a system that much too often insists on unjust punishment. Filmmaker Dawn Porter examines the difficulties in getting a just trial and fair sentencing when loopholes exist: for example, you more often than not get fewer years if you plead guilty. Only since 1963, have those who cannot afford an attorney been provided with public defenders. These men and women are indeed an army, fighting in an often hellish war. Over 2.2 million Americans languish in our prison. I saw this documentary two weeks ago and it really is must-see for anyone interested in our dysfunctional criminal justice system.

The all day conference also promises an amazing lineup of speakers. I've listed the agenda below and you can register for the conference here. Note the keynote address is by Stephen Bright, President and Senior Counsel of the Southern Center for Human Rights. Their accomplishments include representing those facing the death penalty; ending human rights abuses in prison and improving jail conditions; and making real the Constitutional right to counsel.

Agenda

9:00 – Welcome and Opening

 

9:30 – Stephen Singer, Assistant Clinical Professor, Loyola University College of Law, New Orleans


10:00 – Panel 1 on structural reforms, moderated by Carol Steiker, Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

  • Anthony Benedetti, Chief Counsel, Committee for Public Counsel Services
  • Robert Boruchowitz, Professor from Practice, Seattle University Law School
  • Alexandra Natapoff, Professor of Law, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles

11:00 – Video of HLS faculty Charles Ogletree and Nancy Gertner

11:30 – Gary Drinkard, Board member of Witness to Innocence and exonerated Alabama death row prisoner

 

12:00 – Lunch (provided)

  • Honoring Judge George N. Leighton (HLS '46), U.S. District Court of Northern District of Illinois, retired

1:00 – Keynote address: "Defiance and Resistance to Gideon" – Stephen Bright, President and Senior Counsel, Southern Center for Human Rights

 

1:45 – Marc Bookman, Director, The Atlantic Center for Capital Representation

 

2:15 – Panel 2 on MyGideon and training, moderated by Robert J. Smith, Assistant Professor of Law, UNC School of Law

  • Cathleen Bennett, Criminal Defense Training Director, Committee for Public Counsel Services
  • Stephen Singer, Assistant Clinical Professor, Loyola University College of Law
  • Jeff Sherr, Education and Strategic Planning Manager, Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy

3:15 – Renée Hutchins, Associate Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law

3:45 – Dehlia Umunna, Acting Deputy, Director and Clinical Instructor at the Criminal Justice Institute (CJI) at Harvard Law School

4:00 – Screening of Gideon's Army documentary

 

5:30 – Conversation with Gideon's Army director Dawn Porter and Ronald Sullivan, Clinical Professor of Law & Director, Criminal Justice Institute, Harvard Law School