{"id":34140,"date":"2022-07-25T22:27:28","date_gmt":"2022-07-25T22:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/?p=34140"},"modified":"2022-07-25T22:27:28","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T22:27:28","slug":"charleston-attorney-will-be-sworn-in-next-week-as-new-9th-circuit-public-defender-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/25\/charleston-attorney-will-be-sworn-in-next-week-as-new-9th-circuit-public-defender-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Charleston attorney will be sworn in next week as new 9th Circuit public defender | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Local<\/span> attorney Cameron Blazer was appointed as the next 9th Circuit public defender, a role she\u2019ll assume Aug. 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 46-year-old criminal defense lawyer will replace Ashley Pennington, who is retiring after 14 years in the position. Blazer will manage an office of 40 attorneys who defend impoverished men and women accused of crimes in Berkeley and Charleston counties.<\/p>\n

The S.C. Commission of Indigent Defense accepted Blazer’s nomination May 25. She was referred to the state commission by the 9th Circuit Public Defender Selection Panel, a five-member body elected by Charleston and Berkeley counties’ bar associations.<\/p>\n

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Cameron Blazer has been appointed as the next 9th Circuit public defender. Provided<\/p>\n

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Blazer, who was born and raised in Charleston, is returning to the public sector after spending the better part of the past decade as a private criminal defense attorney.<\/p>\n

Blazer didn\u2019t always know she wanted to be a lawyer. She began her career in technology consulting, trading the Lowcountry for the West Coast after graduating in 1997 from the University of South Carolina.<\/p>\n

Blazer spent her evenings moonlighting as a line cook in Hollywood kitchens. Positions in both the tech and culinary worlds gave her an intimate glimpse into the immigrant community. Blazer watched her colleagues of varying levels of privilege \u2014\u00a0undocumented people in kitchens and H-1B visa recipients in tech \u2014\u00a0\u201cget screwed\u201d by the immigration system, she said.<\/p>\n

She moved back to South Carolina and became an academic adviser at her alma mater, helping many undergraduate students choose law school as their next adventure. Cameron McGowan Currie, a federal judge in Columbia and Blazer’s namesake, encouraged her to do the same.<\/p>\n

She graduated from the Charleston School of Law in 2007. Blazer had always thought she\u2019d wind up an immigration attorney, but she developed an interest in criminal law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blazer spent one year at a civil law firm before joining the 9th Circuit Public Defender\u2019s Office, where Pennington was its newly elected leader. The role felt like a natural fit, she said.<\/p>\n

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Pennington remembers the “bright” young attorney as someone \u201ccommitted to working hard to help her clients.\u201d Blazer came in and did just that, he said.<\/p>\n

She spent a year in Pennington\u2019s office before becoming an assistant federal public defender in South Carolina. Blazer held that job until 2013, when her salary was cut in the federal budget.<\/p>\n

Blazer, who had a young child at home, decided to enter private practice. She got a job at Savage Law Firm in Charleston as an associate criminal defense lawyer.<\/p>\n

There, Blazer represented a slew of clients, including former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager. The White ex-cop pleaded guilty in 2017 to violating the civil rights of Walter Scott, a Black motorist he fatally shot in April 2015 following a traffic stop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager talks with attorney Cameron Blazer as attorney Andy Savage and Solicitor Scarlett Wilson meet to discuss the status of the Walter Scott murder case on Dec. 4, 2015. Blazer will be sworn in as the next 9th Circuit public defender on Aug. 2, 2022. File\/Grace Beahm\/Staff<\/p>\n

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As a private defender, Blazer found that members of the public would sometimes assume a lawyer endorses their client’s actions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“My endorsement is of humanity,\u201d she said. \u201c(The) humanity I have found in every single person I have ever represented.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blazer sees criminal defense as being an important check on the power of a government to take away someone\u2019s freedom. It\u2019s her job to ensure that when a client is convicted of criminal behavior, the consequences aren\u2019t disproportionate, and take into account the totality of the person, she said.<\/p>\n

After nearly nine years as a private defense lawyer \u2014\u00a0time which included opening her own firm \u2014\u00a0Blazer carefully thought about whether she should apply for Pennington\u2019s job. She asked herself: \u201cWould this be good for me, and would I be good for it?\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawyer’s private practice is shutting down as a result of her new position, Blazer said. She will continue representing clients from a few outstanding cases through their completion.<\/p>\n

Her heart has always been with public defense, she said. These lawyers play an important role \u2014 not only in fighting for a fair outcome in their clients\u2019 cases but also in helping them live happy and successful lives after their case has left the criminal-justice system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are our neighbors, and whether we \u2026\u00a0see their conduct as reprehensible, regrettable, worthy of punishment \u2014\u00a0they are not islands,\u201d she said. \u201cThey have families, they have jobs, they have children, they have friends, they have communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the ripple effects of what judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys do to either help them or punish them will ripple in both directions. Blazer doesn\u2019t feel a lot of \u201cmoral ambiguity\u201d about her job, she said.<\/p>\n

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There will be short- and long-term challenges in her new role as public defender, Blazer acknowledged, the most pressing of which is the enormous case backlog threatening courts statewide. The typical criminal case in Charleston County took 592 days \u2014\u00a0more than a year and a half \u2014\u00a0to resolve in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m going to do everything I can to be a thoughtful and creative problem solver,\u201d Blazer said about fixing the backlog problem. Everyone involved needs to be \u201copen and willing to try new things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said she looks forward to working with Blazer, who “has always been a very thorough and skilled defense attorney.”<\/p>\n

The top prosecutor has already met with the incoming defender, and Blazer knows most of the attorneys in Wilson’s office, the solicitor said.<\/p>\n

Pennington said he believes his replacement will do a \u201csuperb job.\u201d Blazer has met with the outgoing defender several times, as well as senior staff members in both Charleston and Berkeley counties.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe seems to be very energetic and enthusiastic about taking on this challenge,\u201d Pennington said. \u201cI look forward to watching her success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blazer is most excited about working with a group of people who share the same set of values and organizing principles: \u201cIt\u2019s a community,\u201d she said of her fellow public defenders.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n