Gideon's Promise: A Public Defender Movement to Transform Criminal Justice

by Jonathan Rapping

Overview

A criminal defense attorney “tugs at both the heartstrings and our consciences as he challenges America’s true commitment to justice” (Stacey Abrams), offering a blueprint for how public defense programs should work to end mass incarceration

Combining wisdom drawn from over a dozen years as a public defender and cutting-edge research in the fields of organizational and cultural psychology, Jonathan Rapping proposes a radical cultural shift to a “fiercely client-based ethos” driven by values-based recruitment training, awakening defenders to their role in upholding an unjust status quo, and a renewed pride in the essential role of moral lawyering in a democratic society.

Public defenders represent over 80% of those who interact with the court system, a disproportionate number of whom are poor, non-white citizens who rely on them to navigate the law on their behalf. More often than not, even the most well-meaning of those defenders are over-worked, under-funded, and incentivized to put the interests of judges and politicians above those of their clients in a culture that beats the passion out of talented, driven advocates, and has led to an embarrassingly low standard of justice for those who depend on the promises of Gideon v. Wainwright.

Through the story of founding Gideon’s Promise and anecdotes of his time as a defender and teacher, Rapping reanimates the possibility of public defenders serving as a radical bulwark against government oppression and a megaphone to amplify the voices of those they serve.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807064986
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	08/18/2020
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Jonathan Rapping is the founder and president of Gideon’s Promise, an organization dedicated to changing the culture and practice of public defense in America. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant, which recognized him for his work as a criminal justice innovator. Rapping is a Professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School and Harvard Law School and lives in Atlanta, GA with his wife and their two children. Connect with him and his organization at gideonspromise.org and on Twitter (@Gideons_Promise).

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
A Shared Vision

PART I: VALUES

CHAPTER 1
Voice for the Voiceless

CHAPTER 2
The Evolving Narrative of Justice

PART II: CULTURE

CHAPTER 3
Routine Injustice

CHAPTER 4
A Mighty Stream

CHAPTER 5
The First Step Is Resistance

CHAPTER 6
David’s Slingshot

PART III: TRANSFORMATION

CHAPTER 7
Closing the Gap

CHAPTER 8
Until the Lion Learns to Write

EPILOGUE
The System’s Conscience

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

03/09/2020

Rapping, a MacArthur “genius grant” recipient and former public defender, describes in this impressive debut the history and philosophy of Gideon’s Promise, his criminal justice reform organization. Named for Gideon v. Wainwright, the 1963 Supreme Court case establishing the constitutional right to counsel, Gideon’s Promise seeks to build a community of public defenders committed to “procedural justice,” “client-centered lawyering,” and the idea that people are more than “the sum total of their worst acts.” Rapping paints a bleak picture of the modern “conveyor belt” criminal justice system that creates impossible caseloads for public defenders, devalues the accused (80% of whom can’t afford to hire a lawyer), leans on plea bargaining under threat of unaffordable bail, and prioritizes lawyers’ relationships with judges over clients. To counteract these imbalances, Rapping trains lawyers to resist streamlining procedures that leave no time to collect information beyond police reports, adopt a narrative approach to “shape the universe of facts” at every step of the process, and commit to seeing their clients as people. He makes a convincing case that well-supported, values-based public defenders who prioritize incremental improvements in the face of systematic injustice can be effective change agents. This optimistic, well-articulated account is a must-read for policy makers and criminal-justice advocates. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Useful reading for anyone interested in helping to change a deeply flawed system.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“[Gideon’s Promise] is very much a manual for public defenders, at all levels, who want to end mass incarceration. But this is not just a book for public defenders. If you have any interest in the civil rights movement of our time, this book is for you.”
—Gideon’s Soldiers

“Jonathan Rapping is a true freedom fighter, heroically championing the rights of the condemned and the accused for more than two decades. His courageous and visionary leadership at Gideon’s Promise is helping to build a movement of public defense lawyers determined to fight for those who have been discarded in the era of mass incarceration and to transform our criminal punishment system into a justice system—a transformation that is long overdue.”
—Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

“Public defenders are routinely overlooked in the struggle to end mass incarceration. In this inspiring new book, Jonathan Rapping seeks to change that. He shows us that we can—and must—build a world full of public defenders who fight relentlessly for their clients, partner with communities to resist injustice, and lead movements for radical change.”
—James Forman Jr., author of Locking Up Our Own

“With jaw-dropping stories that both infuriate and inspire, Jonathan Rapping takes the reader on a journey through the murky trenches of American criminal justice and pitches public defenders as the unrecognized heroes who can lead us to a better place. Provocative and persuasive, Gideon’s Promise is the book a ‘woke’ Atticus Finch would have written.”
—Paul Butler, author of Chokehold

“In Gideon’s Promise, Jonathan Rapping tugs at both the heartstrings and our consciences as he challenges America’s true commitment to justice. He gracefully articulates the importance of public defenders in our system of justice and rings the alarm at how the system is failing not only the poor but justice itself. With a clear, resonant style, he walks the reader through the grotesque abuses of some of our most vulnerable, while offering solutions that can lift us up to our highest ideals.”
—Stacey Abrams, author of Minority Leader

“Over the last half century, America’s reactionary investment of billions into police, prosecution, and prisons has resulted in over-incarceration and an extreme, unjust, unreliable system. This important exploration of the role of defenders is a vital and compelling corrective on how we balance the scales of justice.”
—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy

“If we truly believe black lives matter—indeed, that the lives of anyone who has been left behind matter—we must ensure they have a voice in the criminal legal system where so much damage is done. Gideon’s Promise cautions us that these voices can never be heard without phenomenal public defenders who must speak for them. If we really care about the dignity of those impacted by our criminal justice policies, we must heed the call of this critically important book and view public defenders as indispensable to any solution.”
—Ben Crump, author of Open Season

“As Bryan Stevenson did in Just Mercy, Jonathan Rapping transports us to the front lines of the criminal justice system with a breathtaking book that will both inform and inspire. With superb storytelling, great heart, and overwhelming clarity, Gideon’s Promise is must-reading for anyone interested in social justice in America.”
—Gilbert King, author of Devil in the Grove

From the Publisher

2020-02-19
An indictment of the U.S. criminal justice system, which treats the majority of defendants as ciphers—or worse.

Rapping, a public defender who has received a MacArthur award for his pioneering work, explains how his career has led him to spearhead much-needed reforms. After struggling against recalcitrant judges, prosecutors, and even fellow public defenders in numerous jurisdictions, the author decided that the path to meaningful change for indigent defendants would need to come from public defenders themselves. Throughout the book, filled with detailed case studies of justice gone awry, Rapping describes the heavy caseloads and lack of funds with which most public defenders struggle, which means that their clients receive almost no attention. Rather than seeking courtroom trials for clients, besieged public defenders accept plea bargains for defendants without even exploring the possibility of an acquittal or a reduction of a prosecutor’s charges. “The prosecution,” writes the author, “has developed a formidable arsenal…to coerce people into giving up the protections at the heart of our justice system, and now only one in twenty Americans convicted of a crime even experience a trial.” The method Rapping devised emphasizes a “client-centered defense,” in which men and women represented by public defenders are more than just a case on paper and are “treated with dignity in the system.” The approach morphed into an organization called Gideon’s Promise, named for Gideon v. Wainwright, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the state must provide an attorney to those who cannot afford one. As Rapping documents, state legislatures, prosecutors, and judges have often resisted the intention of the court ruling, leading to countless travesties. Rapping tellingly quotes one judge who saw through the resistance: “While we all may not be able to agree on what justice looks like, surely we can agree on what injustice looks like.”

Useful reading for anyone interested in helping to change a deeply flawed system.

Kirkus Reviews