Via: defendernetwork.com
Harris County will soon have its first chief public defender.
In less than two weeks we will know who will be named to that new position. The announcement on Nov.1 will come through the William A. Lawson Institute for Peace and Prosperity. It is the same agency that monitors the newly selected public defender board.
WALIPP leaders have long pushed to get this important position filled to ensure, what they say is, justice for all.
“A public defender is a lawyer who defends poor people, when they’ve been accused of a misdemeanor or a felony and cannot afford their own lawyer. In Harris County we’ve had a lawyer system, not a public defender system,” Sheryl Lawson, the director of WALLIP said.
The appointment Harris County comes 96 years after the first U.S. public defender was chosen in Los Angeles County.
