#indigent defense

I’m in law school in Atlanta, GA. I have no interest in prosecuting criminals or litigating for personal injury compensation. I’m in law school to save lives.

I am in law school because I know people personally whose faces will never kiss sunlight in the free world again. By name, I know people who have spent the length of my life in a cell...awaiting death. I know people serving double digits for possession of the same substance white people are selling on the shelves of the local Starbucks in D.C. My heart breaks for children who love incarcerated parents over the phone and women who carry whole families on their shoulders for years at a time. 

Men in California are doing thirty years for three strikes. Women in Indiana are birthing babies in shackles. Children in Louisiana are spending months in jail with adults as they await trial for misdemeanors. 

Financially strapped municipal courts are routinely violating the rights of poor defendants.

Original post from Take Part ‘…………….By Rebecca McCray  Rebecca McCray is a staff writer covering social justice. A former Fulbright scholar, she is based in New York. The municipal court in Greenville, South Carolina, is in a mini-mall. (Photo: Matthew Franklin Carter) TAKEPART FEATURES This Is What Justice Looks Like in Many Small Towns Across America   After four years with the Army in Iraq,…