The Defender Association of Philadelphia, of which I worked for 20 years as a public defender, is celebrating its 90th year of representing poor defendants today!

Constitution Center Hosts Philadelphia Public Defenders

There will be a gala gathering at the United States Constitution Center in Philadelphia to mark the occasion. The Center has on display the actual handwritten appeal by a young man who convinced the Supreme Court to overturn his conviction and ordered a new trial in which he was found not guilty and was released from the five-year sentence that was imposed. That was after he requested the Florida court appoint a lawyer to represent him and the judge denied his request.

Gideon v. Wainwright was the case that led to public defenders being provided for anyone arrested and faced with more than six months in jail. (Please see the television movie outline by clicking on the case name.)

A Defense Attorney is a Necessity and not a Luxury

In 1963, the Supreme Court decried that, for criminal cases to be fair, defense lawyers are “necessities, not luxuries.” The court ordered that states must ensure that people who cannot afford defense lawyers are provided with them at government expense.

Philadelphia had been providing the service for some 20 years before that. It was named one of the best public defenders’ offices in the nation at one time.

I worked there for 20 years trying more than 100 jury trials and winning more than half of them. I hold a record for conducting 10 jury trials in the span of nine weeks when I first started out around 1990. (Some lawyers never try 10 jury trial cases during their entire careers.)

We kept a list of “ethically challenged” police officers which told us which cops had to be watched closely during a trial. I am grateful that it was only a small minority of the force.

New District Attorney Reveals List of Questionable Cops

What shocked me years later was when I learned that the district attorney’s office had a similar list. It was made public when a colleague of mine left the Defender Association and ran for public office.

He was named the Philadelphia District Attorney and one of the first steps that Larry Krasner took while assuming his office was to reveal that the DA’s office had had such a list of questionable police officers too.

I am proud to have served Philadelphia and the men and women who needed someone to safeguard their legal interests while appearing in our court system. I’m not the only one. It turns out that President Joe Biden‘s first job out of law school was to serve as a public defender too!