{"id":30072,"date":"2022-03-25T22:23:19","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T22:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/?p=30072"},"modified":"2022-03-25T22:23:19","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T22:23:19","slug":"ketanji-brown-jackson-hearings-spotlight-public-defenders-maligned-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2022\/03\/25\/ketanji-brown-jackson-hearings-spotlight-public-defenders-maligned-role\/","title":{"rendered":"Ketanji Brown Jackson hearings spotlight public defenders’ maligned role"},"content":{"rendered":"

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(Reuters) – Over the past year, public defenders have found themselves in the ironic position of having to defend their role in the U.S. legal system \u2013 as Constitutionally required defenders of public rights \u2013 in the public sphere.<\/p>\n

Last July, more than 50 criminal justice and defense organizations wrote<\/a> Congress complaining that public defender nominees for judgeships were being unfairly targeted for criticism compared with former prosecutors or corporate lawyers. Earlier this month, Senate Republicans described<\/a> one such nominee as a “zealot” because she had argued against the death penalty in a murder trial.<\/p>\n

The clash reached a crescendo this week, as conservatives continued to attack<\/a> U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson for her previous work representing defendants unable to afford an attorney. Jackson worked from 2005 to 2007 as a court-appointed lawyer paid by the government to represent indigent criminal defendants, including four Guantanamo detainees.<\/p>\n

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