Court Warriors

biography packet. This is a packet of information, photos, certificates, showing all the contributions and reasons why the person you are advocating for is an asset to their family and community.

Step FIVE: Involve the supervisors if the relationship with the assigned attorney is not working to your satisfaction Court appointed attorneys, such as lawyers from the Public Defender’s Office, are publicly accountable. They are paid for by public dollars, and thus have a responsibility to be responsive to their employers – the people of their county or state. Line attorneys, meaning the ones who represent clients in the courtroom, have supervisors, and ultimately, there is one director of the office. Even if they are a private attorney on contract with the county or state, there is an assigning manager. If your community is not getting adequate responses, or if you have some concerns with the attorney representing your loved one, it is important that you notify and involve their superiors. That may be the supervisor of their respective department (examples: juvenile unit, misdemeanor unit, felony unit) and/or the head of the office. The quality of the defense of the line attorney can improve when they know their supervisors are monitoring, or involved, in the case.

Also, even independent of a particular case, meeting with the Public Defender’s Office (or the respective indigent services agency) can be an important precursor to working on cases. Having that office know who you are, and your intentions, can preemptively resolve issues with defense counsel before a case has started. When their office starts to receive emails coming from your organization, they will already know the context, and they may alert the line attorneys that they should be working with your organization.

Step SIX: Stay on it until your community gets to the place you are trying to get to While speed is important to ensure all steps are taken early by a community to support an individual facing charges, in the criminal justice system, so is staying power. The amount of time a court case can take – the number of court dates and the distance between them – can be so taxing, individuals may feel pressure to resolve a case early. By staying committed to the long run, victories can come about that otherwise would not have, had the case ended early. Even after jury trials, appeals are possible, can be aided tremendously with community support, and can yield the successes families have long waited for.

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