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Clara Foltz, one of the first women lawyers in the United States, was also the first to propose a public defender. Her radical idea that the state should provide a defense for those it accuses was born from Foltz's experiences as a jury lawyer facing unfair prosecutors, and from her involvement with other reform movements such as suffrage and populism. She marshaled creative constitutional arguments and a rights-based presumption of innocence in support of her conception. Foltz's public defender was a capable jury lawyer, the equal of the public prosecutor in resources and respect. As actually enacted in the Progressive Era twenty years after Foltz first proposed it, the public defender was less concerned with individual advocacy than with more generalized fair process. The history of the public defender reveals the tension between the models of zealous advocate and responsible public official, a tension both present at the creation and perhaps inherent in the office itself.
Other publications by this author
- The Catalyst Behind a New Generation of Women Lawyers
- A Pioneering Woman Lawyer
- Woman Lawyer: The Trials of Clara Foltz
- Alma Mater: Clara Foltz and Hastings College of Law
- Civil Procedure: Cases and Problems, 4th Ed.
- Clara Foltz
- Henry Edgerton
- Being Penny-wise and Justice-foolish
- Deliberation in 12 Angry Men
- Clara Shortridge Foltz: Inventing the Public Defender
Author
- Barbara Babcock
- Stanford Law School
- bbabcock@stanford.edu
- 650 723.3055