The Human Dignity of the Accused and the Vocation of the Public Defender

The eternal principle behind all of Catholic social teaching is human dignity, that all of us are created in the image of God.  From time to time on the Mirror of Justice, I’ve returned to the theme of human dignity in the particular contexts of the accused and the prisoner.

In the United States, to our tribute, we have a history of extending compassion to the disadvantaged, enhancing rights for the vulnerable, and creating opportunity for all.  But our beneficence tends to be withdrawn precipitously when a person stumbles badly and commits a criminal act.  For in the United States, to our shame, we have a history of throwing away those human beings who have committed serious (and, increasingly, not so serious) crimes against the public.

No cause generates less sympathy than a proposal to grant rights, create opportunities, or simply ensure a minimal quality of life to those who stand accused of a crime and those who languish in prison.  Consider, as examples, our public failure to guarantee a defense in court to those who are charged with a crime, the mindless imposition of mandatory minimum sentences against those convicted of relatively minor and non-violent offenses, the persistence of a death penalty in a stable civilization with a secure prison system, the decline in the use of pardons or clemency for cases where the punishment exceeds the wrong, the institution of no tolerance rules in schools and elsewhere that too often transfer disciplinary problems involving our children into criminal court, or the continuing problem of rape in prison that destroys so many lives hidden away in our criminal warehouses.

With respect to the first of these examples, the public duty to provide a true defense for every person charged with a crime, public defenders are among the first to be cut when governments face budget deficits.  And those who remain take on ever greater burdens, handling far too many cases while striving always to remember and uphold the dignity of the persons they are representing.

In today’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Michael Holland of the Hennepin County (Minneapolis) public defender’s office is the subject of a well-deserved and eye-opening profile.  Here’s a few excerpts (the full article may be found here):

Michael Holland charges through the jailhouse doorway, a teetering stack of 15 manila legal files under his right arm. He carries his lunch, a peanut-butter granola bar, in the other hand. It's 1:40 on a recent Thursday afternoon, and the Hennepin County public defender was due in arraignment court 10 minutes ago. . . .

Holland spent the morning meeting new clients. A guard led them one by one from their cells to a shoebox-sized interview room, but Holland ran out of time after conferring with only 12 of the 15. They join the 50 others he already represents. Dozens more new cases will come his way next week. . . .

Advocating for the poor in a swamped court system, Holland is not only juggling more cases than ever, but he's also trying to balance his sense of justice with the realities of budget cuts and a sour economy. He is one of a dwindling number of not quite 400 public defenders in Minnesota who speak for more than 85 percent of those charged with crimes. . . .

“When I go to court, I'm the only other one looking out for that client and that's a lot of pressure,” [Holland] says. “But public defenders are eternal optimists, like Don Quixote. We march up the hill every day and we attack this windmill that's not going to move. Occasionally, we do move it.”

For those of us who think and write about the law as a vocation, and especially for Catholic legal scholars who are united in our commitment to human dignity as the measure of a just legal system, Michael Holland and his colleagues in the public defender community are exemplars of the servant-leader model.

In the video that accompanies the on-line version of the Star-Tribune story, Mr. Holland says:  “I love my clients, I do.  When my client goes to prison, a little bit of me goes too.”  Wow!  Our Lord promised the blessings of heaven to those who cared for the destitute, including prisoners, saying:  “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matt. 25:35-40).  I am humbled to be part of a legal profession that includes a man like Michael Holland.

Greg Sisk