Seventy years before Gideon v. Wainright, the landmark case establishing the right to counsel in state courts, Clara Shortridge Foltz delivered a rousing speech at the Chicago World’s Fair.1 Clara Foltz may not be a household name, but she was a groundbreaking legal leader of her time and deeply understood the power dynamics within the criminal legal system. As the first woman to serve as a deputy district attorney in the country, Foltz recognized that the key to upholding our constitutional ideals of justice and the presumption of innocence was ensuring “a court to which rich and poor might freely go and equally expect the justice to which the law entitled them.” Foltz’s prescient speech echoes today, as our Constitution is put to the test against the power and weight of the government.
Decades after Foltz introduced the concept of access to justice through an office of the public defender, Clarence Gideon wrote to the Supreme Court of the United States and argued that he had the right to an attorney because the State of Florida sought to prosecute him. The court agreed, and that case established the right to counsel for the accused in state courts for those who cannot afford to retain counsel. But states were left to figure out the details, how to make that right a reality for every person who entered the courthouse.
After that 1963 decision, the State of Ohio enacted laws to establish a public defense system, creating the Ohio Public Defender Commission and Office of the Ohio Public Defender.2 Ohio counties were tasked with the creation of delivering public defense through the creation of a county public defender office, joint county public defender offices, and county appointed counsel systems. The costs for delivering public defense services were split between the state and the counties.
Accordingly, the Hamilton County Commissioners established the Hamilton County Public Defender Commission, which appointed the first county public defender in 1976. However, the residents of Hamilton County (and the majority of the country) were years away from realizing Foltz’s vision of justice. In a 2008 study conducted by the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, a troubling picture of a constitutionally ineffective public defender office emerged.3
Due to the lack of adequate state and local funding and independence from the judiciary, it was clear that the accused coming before the criminal courts in Hamilton County were not being afforded their constitutional rights.4
Thankfully, the Ohio Public Defender Commission and the Hamilton County government understood the importance of changing course. Since the alarm was rung in the 2008 report, Hamilton County has heeded the call to ensure that not only do the criminally accused in Hamilton County receive adequate defense, but that they receive the high-quality, expert representation that Foltz called for so many years ago. The Hamilton County Public Defender Office today works to bring the promise of Gideon v. Wainwright to our clients each day. Our attorneys come from across the country with a commitment to public defense. They are duty-bound to review the evidence, understand the law, and challenge junk science that can lead to wrongful convictions. They are tireless, highly skilled, well-trained litigators. They understand the systemic inequities and the real-life challenges of the clients they serve.
As the office has grown, so has its understanding of what true access to justice looks like. Beyond the courtroom, the office employs a holistic defense model that utilizes investigators, paralegals, and social workers. This holistic defense team investigates each case, identifies the root causes that bring people to criminal courts, and connects clients to the help they need so they can break out of a cycle that would otherwise lead them right back to the courthouse. This approach ultimately makes Hamilton County safer.
The office also recognizes the many collateral effects of criminal convictions and juvenile adjudications and helps people rejoin society and find opportunities after they have completed their sentence. Since 2013, the office has operated its Fresh Start expungement clinic on the first and third Wednesday of each month. There is no other expungement clinic like it in Ohio.
For true access to justice, effective assistance of counsel requires more than a skilled litigator. Access to justice through client-centered, holistic public defense is not only essential, but it is effective.5 Public defense also serves a broader purpose, protecting the constitutional rights of the entire community by protecting the rights of each client. Day in and day out, public defenders hold the government accountable for constitutional violations. Too often, the accused who cannot afford counsel are residents in under-resourced neighborhoods who have been disproportionately subjected to police contacts and violence.6 They are subject to oversurveillance because of who they are and where they live.7
Public defenders, one case at a time, challenge state action when community members are stopped without reasonable suspicion, seized without probable cause, and searched without a warrant. Public defenders challenge the admissibility of statements when taken in violation of the Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, when community members, even children, are vulnerable to coercive interrogation tactics or not advised of their rights before questioning. Public defenders challenge the constitutionality of criminalized free speech activities. Public defenders do not shy away from taking a case to trial, and bring to life the long-held value in this country, as Foltz eloquently put it, “[e]very man brought to trial in a criminal court being presumed to be innocent, is entitled to be treated as an innocent man, and becomes of necessity the special object of the court’s care.”
At the core of Foltz’s vision for a public defender office was ensuring the same dignity to the accused who cannot afford counsel as a citizen who has the resources to retain effective counsel by fighting for it in court. A well-resourced, well-trained public defender office, with attorneys that bring life to their client’s humanity, supports the integrity of the justice system, and brings hope to each person served. To bring Foltz’s vision alive, the Hamilton County Public Defender has DIGNITY*JUSTICE*HOPE signs posted throughout the office and on the office letterhead, promising each client that they will be treated with DIGNITY as we fight for JUSTICE, to give them HOPE every day.
Raymond T. Faller has been the Chief Public Defender for Hamilton County since August 2012. He will retire on June 30th, 2026. Angela Chang is the Youth Defense Division Director at the Hamilton County Public Defender Office, where she has worked since 2015. She will step into the role of Chief Public Defender on July 1st, 2026.
1 “Public Defender Rights of Persons Accused of Crime,” Clara Shortridge Foltz, August 8, 1893, available at https://speakingwhilefemale.co/law-foltz/
2 O.R.C. 120.01-.04
3 “Taking Gideon’s Pulse: An Assessment of the Right to Counsel in Hamilton County, Ohio (April 2008).
4 See American Bar Association (ABA) Standards for Criminal Justice Representation Providing Defense Services (3d ed. 1992), Standard 5-1.4, Supporting Services, available at https://www.americanbar.org/groups/criminal_justice/publications/criminal_justice_section_archive/crimjust_standards_defsvcs_toc/
5 See “National Association for Public Defender Foundational Principles,” Principle 8, National Association for Public Defense, available at https://publicdefenders.us/app/uploads/2025/02/NAPD-Foundational-Principles_March-16-2017.pdf
6 See “Contacts Between Police and the Public, 2022, ” Tapp and Davis, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, available at https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/contacts-between-police-and-public-2022; Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice: Science, Practice, and Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2023, available at https://doi.org/10.17226/2422
7 See Merit Brief of Amici Curiae, State v. Hairston, 2019 Ohio 1622. Public defender offices from across the state came together to express concern about what the Fourth Amendment case would mean for the rights of residents of a “high crime area.”