Highlighting notable new Inquest essays looking “Beyond Gideon“

I continue to struggle to find time to keep up with all the commentaries posted at Inquest.  As regular readers know from my prior postings, Inquest bills itself as “a decarceral brainstorm,” and it keeps churning out a wide array of essays on a wide array of criminal justice topics.  For example, a few weeks ago, a new essay by Jared Mollenkof focused on a new local prosecutor: ” A Prosecutor’s Decarceral Potential: A new Minneapolis-area county attorney won’t end mass incarceration. But she has the chance to cause less harm and promote healing.”

Capturing my attention this morning is a new Inquest series titled “Beyond Gideon,” which is described as a “collection of essays examining how — or whether — public defenders can meaningfully contribute to the end of mass incarceration.”  Here is part of how the series is set up here:

In the struggle against the harms of the carceral state, Inquest recognizes the limits of the public defense system — and of other actors in the criminal legal system.  Yet we also recognize that public defenders, by being among the closest to the people and communities harmed by mass incarceration, have a valuable role in working toward a world without it.  By running for office, advocating for decarceral legislation, and getting the attention of the Supreme Court, public defenders can — and do — fight for change.

Beyond Gideon is our attempt to broaden this lens.  In this series, we address questions about the role of public defense in challenging mass incarceration, and the conversations required to move that work forward.

We open with a reading list of archival essays examining how public defenders fit in the current system.  Over the next two weeks, in recognition of the sixtieth anniversary of the Gideon ruling, we will add a five-part series of new essays from people invested in thinking through the role of public defenders in bringing about a decarceral future.

There are two new essays already now available on the Inquest site, and here are the titles and links:

By Premal Dharia, “Gideon Turns Sixty: The Court’s decision must not preempt questions about the role public defenders can play in ending mass incarceration.”

By Alexis Hoag-Fordjour, “Choice of Counsel: People assigned a public defender are the only ones deprived of the right to choose their lawyer.  This often intersects disastrously with racial bias.”