Public Defense Informer: Small Steps
Five years ago, I left home for the first time to enter the world of journalism. Since then, I have covered one of the largest prison-break manhunts in the history of the U.S., documented Franklin County’s attempts to enter the 21st-century economy, and interviewed a prisoner who attempted to retire from the prison labor system.
When I returned to the Bronx last year, I was hoping to take my experiences from rural journalism and combine it with the material I would learn at CUNY Newmark to more effective mesh with the communities I would cover in the future.
To prepare that synthesis, I chose to focus on a community I’ve covered in the past: court-appointed counsel and their clients. I’ve studied this facet of the legal system since I was very young — my father has worked for decades as one of the independent attorneys who represents defendants through the Bronx’s Assigned Counsel Plan. Dad would talk about his clients at the dinner table, as well as the strategies used by the prosecutors and how much or little they were accommodated by the judge on the case.
My interest in the legal system continued into adulthood. At SUNY Purchase, I wrote a magazine-length article focusing on indigent defendants in Bronx Criminal Court. When I graduated from college and began reporting as a career, I paid attention to the development of the Public Defender’s Offices in Franklin County — such as the county government’s struggle to staff enough people for the listed salaries.
For all my professional familiarity, I can’t personally write from the perspective of the defendants who must rely on court-appointed counsel. By reaching out to old sources and new contacts, however, I hoped to build a web of contributors who could help me and the general public understand the workload and the personal toll.
Taking advantage of family connections, my father was able to introduce me to several working Assigned Counsel attorneys at the Bronx courthouse. These attorneys were happy to speak with me and provide context for my first articles. Branching out my own outreach, I found two more experts among the CUNY Law faculty who worked as institutional defenders.
One attorney, Philip Katz of Manhattan, told me of his work in Family Court: “I like helping people, and I wanted to do more of that in my work.”
Originally, I wanted to build out a series of “know-your-rights” workshops focused on court-appointed counsel — who could expect counsel to be appointed for them, how much control a client has to be involved in their own defense, and what services are accompanied with counsel. This would not only help people familiarize themselves with the legal system, but also create positive media presence for the public defenders.
The pandemic set me back greatly in making contacts and finding opportunities to meet with non-attorneys. I hoped that attorneys I managed to speak to could pass on my information to former clients that wanted to speak about their experiences, but I know now that was not enough.
I scaled back my goals to a simpler solution: get information about the indigent defense system to the public with an online publication. Public Defense Informer would be the best way to compile and distribute the information I had gathered about how attorneys relate to their clients.
The articles I chose for Public Defense Informer’s premiere reflected the topics attorneys emphasized in my early interviews: the financial balancing act, the history of public defense, and the reach of those programs. My hope was that providing a baseline of context, I could work towards more specific topics in the future.
I also hope to capitalize on PDI’s unique focus on indigent defense. I found little sustained focus from publications like Queens Legal Eagle or the New York Daily News. While it left me with little to base a future publication on, it meant that this was a space with room for someone to set precedent.
Yet limitations still took their toll. Messages to potential sources were left to hang for weeks before I moved on to new sources, hoping for a late reply back. A lack of opportunity to go out meant less time at the courthouse. The very nature of my focus community precluded a lot of action images to draw attention to any product I planned to make, as photos are generally frowned upon inside a courtroom.
My own trepidation about creating the “ideal” product kept me from going fully public with PDI until near the end of the semester. Eventually, I was able to find enough public domain images and make enough design choices to put together a presentable website.
The Facebook page is the main outreach point for PDI, which has received a moderate amount of attention since it went up. Using my Twitter has been less successful, though I was more hesitant to use it.
PDI currently stands at a crossroads. There is a healthy amount of material to generate initial interest; it does, however, come with a barebones presentation and little official support.
Despite all the difficulties, I am proud of PDI. I am happy that I have been able to create a foothold for news about indigent defense, especially at a time when people are rethinking the balance of power between the public and law enforcement. I know there is a future for this kind of reporting and I hope to be able to contribute to it.
