If you’ve ever watched a cop show on TV, you’re probably familiar with the line in the Miranda Warning that guarantees an attorney for those defendants who can’t afford one.
Scott Carpenter is that attorney. Actually, he’s one of about two dozen attorneys on staff at the Knox County Public Defender’s Office (also known as the Community Law Office). Their primary mission is to represent and defend those people who are too poor to hire an attorney on their own. In Part One of this series "The Art of the Deal", WUOT's Matt Shafer Powell takes us to felony sessions court, where an overburdened legal system forces Carpenter to resolve ten felony cases in just three hours.
Part Two "The Sum and its Parts" takes us to the Community Law Office itself, where Public Defender Mark Stephens uses the concept of "holistic defense" to give his clients a better shot in court and in life.
Read Robin Steinberg's essay "Heeding Gideon's Call in the 21st Century"
Read Brooks Holland's essay "Holistic Advocacy: An Important But Limited Institutional Role"