Page 5 - MarchApril26 Report

Realizing Foltz’s Vision:
How Holistic How Holistic
Defense Defense
Delivers Delivers
True Access True Access
to Justice to Justice
By Angela Chang
By Raymond T. Faller
Equal Justice Demands
Public Defenders
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 crim-
inal legal system. As the first woman to serve as a
deputy district attorney in the country, Foltz recog-
nized 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 enti-
tled them.” Foltz’s prescient speech echoes today, as
our Constitution is put to the test against the power
and weight of the government.
Access to Counsel Evolves and
Expands in Hamilton County
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 Commis-
sioners established the Hamilton County Public
Defender Commission, which appointed the first
county public defender in 1976. However, the resi-
dents 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 trou-
bling 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
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