By Ricardo Garcia
Editor’s note: the following are the comments delivered by Ricardo Garcia at the ARC at UC Davis on Thursday, the chief public defender of Los Angeles. The event – Meeting the Need: The State of Public Defense in California was sponsored by UC Davis School of Law and the Office of the State Public Defender.
It’s fantastic to be here. This really is an amazing space and it really is a privilege to be at UC Davis here in the heartland of California. I want to extend a very warm thank you to the University, to the law school for providing this venue and giving us an opportunity to be here and for partnering with the Office of the State Public Defender, where we could have a place to have these very important conversations about what being a public defender means today.
I also want to specifically thank from the Office of the State Defender, Laurel Gorman. If you’re here, just raise your hand or stand up. Let people know you did an incredible job organizing this conference and you didn’t just bring us together, but you brought some great, great speakers and panelists to share what’s going on in California. So thank you very much. I want to recognize the individuals working behind the scenes, those who helped us really make it successful today, from registration to technology to all the logistical efforts, so the individual standing at the front door to remind us to get our parking so that when we come out we don’t have a ticket. So thank you all the incredible work you’ve done today.
A bit of background for those of you in the audience who don’t know this year, the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office, which was founded in 1914 celebrates 110 years. We hold a distinction of being the first defender office in the United States. It was the vision of Clara Shortridge folks, the first woman lawyer in California who fought tirelessly for the idea that all individuals, regardless of wealth or status deserved legal representation. She understood in 1914 what many people are still struggling to understand today, the just criminal legal system requires equal access to the purse from prosecution and defense. Her efforts laid the foundation for the right to counsel, which was later solidified and codified nationally in the landmark 1963 decision to Supreme Court case Gideon versus WA Wright, the case that so many of us depend on and lean on for the work that we do. That case established a constitutional right to a public defender. That case established a constitutional right for a public to public defender for the indigent person in every criminal case, ensuring that justice, that justice would no longer be observed only for those who could afford it. Today our office continues to honor Clara Shortridge report’s legacy, providing the highest standard of defense to those who need it most and fighting every day to uphold the principles enshrined in Gideon.
The people who work in public defense hold the values and principles of Gideon dear to their hearts, their minds and their guts, and these values are often what bring people to law school and ultimately to the work we do. Now, my journey started a little bit different. I was a small boy when my grandmother told me that I should be a lawyer. I’m confident that when she dreamed about this idea of me being a lawyer, for those of you about Juanita, you know when Juanita says you need to be a lawyer, you got to be a lawyer. You couldn’t have imagined that I’d be standing here today speaking to all of you. She couldn’t have imagined where I would end up. You see, when I grew up, there were no lawyers in my family or not orbit. There were no college graduates in the world that I lived in Examples, there were no examples to draw from.
No real practitioners for me to use as an example of the members of my family to help guide me. Like so many people where I grew up and were my friends, we only had scripted characters on TV or in the movies as the lawyers in our world. I was the first in my family to go to college, then to law school, and though I didn’t know it then my grandmother’s dream and my path led me here. Many people, many of you that are public defenders may have entered this work with a deep passion knowing from the beginning that this was your life’s work. When I began to be a public defender, I hadn’t fully embraced those values and I hadn’t fully embraced the love for the profession that I’ve been doing now for nearly 30 years. But over time, with experience and serving people in need, my love group, and over the years it has deep and I’m confident.
For those of you who do this work, whether you started from the deep passion and commitment or whether you started like I did learning and growing today, you feel that. You feel that in your mind, you feel it in your heart, and you feel it in your gut. Leading the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office is the privilege of my professional career, and it’s a role I approach of the men’s gratitude, not only for myself, but for the team of zealous defenders that work in the office. They embody the mission to fight for justice every single day.
Public defenders stand at the intersection of law and humanity. We are the voice for those who are often ignored, ensuring their rights are defended and their dignity preserved. The work of public public defender goes beyond the courtroom. It extends deep into the communities that we serve, and that’s where the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office is truly distinguishing and has itself become an innovator and a leader. In holistic client centered, our office leads groundbreaking initiatives designed to meet the diverse needs of the communities we serve. For example, our neurocognitive disorders unit, a first of its kind an award-winning program ensures a client suffering from brain injuries, developmental disabilities and neurocognitive talents receive specialized care helping to divert from incarceration and get the treatment they need. Similarly, our community Homeless Outreach Court focuses on addressing the legal issues faced by the un. We partner with social services.
We work together to provide pathways to stability rather than punishment. It’s an amazing court where every individual that comes in is promised that they will not go out and handles. No one goes to jail in our community court. By working with the court and community partners, we push for sentences that address the root cause of a person’s behavior like substance use or mental health disorder. We’re helping reduce recidivism. We’re helping fight homelessness. LA County was the first in the state to establish an immigration unit, a unit that many other offices had built themselves. This dedicated work is helping individuals from the immigrant community to address the impact of the criminal legal system on their immigration status. We work diligently with other advocates to ensure that the impact of the system does not impede them if possible, for remaining in the country and does not break up families.
These programs are just a few. The examples to demonstrate our commitment to finding diverse and effective long-term non-car solutions for our most vulnerable populations, despite the profound and positive impact public defenders make, despite that impact in our offices that all of our offices making, we remain objectively underfunded, remain objectively underfunded in a way that is grossly disproportionate to the prosecutors we confront every single day. Public defense agencies across California face chronic scarcity make it increasingly difficult to meet the growing needs of the communities we serve. While prosecutors and law enforcement often receive substantial financial support from local, state, and federal funders, public defenders are left to operate with inadequate resources, increasing case loads and insufficient staffing. This imbalance undermines the core promise of equal justice one that I mentioned earlier, even Claire Shortridge. Understood in 1914. As the demands on public defense continue to grow with complexities and new laws and the advancement of forensic technology, the resources to support our work have not grown.
They have not grown in a way to meet the daily demands placed on our teams. The clients we serve often the most marginalized members of our society deserve nothing less than the best possible representation. When prosecutors and law enforcement are funded by local, state, or federal government, there must be an allocation for defenders who will most certainly face increased workloads. Because of that resource, there has to be additional funding. As public defenders, we bear witness to systemic inequities. Faced by the people we represent, we see continued ravages from systemic racism. We see the damage of gender bias. We see the harm of criminalization of poverty, and every day we work with people who are traumatized by those realities.
But we also see the hope that comes from investing in people. We see the hope it comes from investing in people. We see how public defenders standing alongside clients can make the difference between incarceration and a second chance or even a third chance. We see how families are reunited and dreams made real when appropriate. Carceral options are made available to ensure that every individual receives the representation they are entitled to, and that communities believe that defenders are their champions. That is essential that public defense agencies receive the funding. We need to effectively carry out our missions. Our offices must be supported to reflect the immense responsibility we carry on behalf of the people in our care and on behalf of our communities and on behalf of their safety. Without this support, the scales of justice will remain unbalanced and all of us, each of us is worse for that without a well-resourced public defender’s office. Fresh start laws, decarceration policies and clean slate initiatives cannot succeed. They need advocates to make them possible. Any alternatives to incarceration and lasting justice reform need public defenders. The fact is no one gets out of jail without a public defense.
The success of public defense is not measured by individual cases, one or less. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s measured by the lives changed, the families restored and the community’s strength. We are measured by the lives we change, the families that are restored by our work and the communities that are strengthened by what we do every single day. Today, public defenders are constitutional lawyers for those most in need. The public defenders protect dignity, defend rights, and we fight every day for fair, just an equitable future. Public defenders stand with the people pulled into the system. People who are complex, people who are complex, people who are beautiful, and as Brian Stevenson says, more than the worst thing they have ever done To achieve true justice within our criminal legal system, we must, we must prioritize, we must uplift, and we must fully resource public defenders, empowering them to combat the persistent claims of injustice. Thank you.
