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Public Defenders: Law in Action [by Erica Winter] Public defenders have one of the toughest gigs in the legal industry - but also one of the most rewarding. Sacrificing the big paycheck to help those in need, public defenders find job satisfaction -- and excellent training -- amid some of the most emotionally-taxing circumstances.
Bored with your work? Becoming a public de-
ence in people’s lives, [that’s] very satisfying.”
fender could solve that problem for you. Not a
end up in prison or be killed, says Lee Coggiola. “It is hard to be poor,” she says. Police
profession for the timid, standing up for those
Being a defense attorney is not about agreeing
officers do not go around knocking down the
who cannot afford to pay for a lawyer (“indi-
with things the person may have done, but in-
doors of the middle class and rooting through
gent defense”) is incredibly busy, often noble,
stead, it is about “respect for the law and the
their homes, but this is not uncommon in poor
sometimes disturbing, frequently underpaid
Constitution, and about treating people as hu-
communities, she says.
and underappreciated - and never dull.
man beings,” says Goemann. It is easy to think of defendants as “those people,” he says, but
But what about the man who Coggiola defend-
“It’s the best job in the whole world,” says Lee
when you meet the defendant and talk one-on-
ed who killed a woman and then threw her
Coggiola, former public defender, now Chief
one, you understand that this is a real person
three-year-old child into an icy river? People
Staff Attorney for the South Carolina Court of
with real problems, “not just labels.”
would ask her: “How can you care about this man?”
Appeals, Columbia. Coggiola’s first trial as a public defender was Coggiola became a lawyer in a mid-career
a rape trial where, according to all the evi-
The answer: There is a misperception that
shift after working at IBM and caring for her
dence against him, the defendant was guilty.
an indigent defender’s job is to “get people
young children. Out of law school, she clerked
She tried to get her client to plead guilty and
off,” says Coggiola, even when they are guilty.
for a judge who became her mentor and
get a lesser jail term, but he refused, insisting
“That’s not what I’m doing at all,” she says. It
guided her into indigent defense work.
that they go to trial. Eventually, he was sen-
is the public defender’s job to make sure the
tenced to 30 years in prison.
process is fair - even for poor people. It is to
Coggiola worked in indigent defense and
make sure that the government follows the
criminal appeals for 15 years, and then spent
Even knowing what might happen, “he had
five years as the Chief Public Defender of
the right to be tried, and he chose that right,”
Richland County (which includes Columbia).
Coggiola says. After her closing arguments,
When she was a public defender, often her
In that office, 16 lawyers handled 7,300 cases
she sat back down and saw that the defendant
clients were “guilty of something involved
a year. “That was lawyering - I felt like a law-
was crying. “He said, ‘no one has ever stood
with the incident,” Coggiola says. The point of
yer,” she says.
up for me like that before,’” says Coggiola.
being an indigent defender is not to have the
Richard Goemann was a public defender for
This is one of the pluses of doing this job:
eight years, first in Alexandria Va., then as
helping people who are not being helped by
rules.
person found innocent; the point is to make sure the government plays fair.
Director of the public defender’s office in Fair-
anyone else. Your colleagues will also add
Coggiola has seen prosecutors “overcharge”
fax, Va., both in suburban Washington, D.C.
value to this profession - “there’s no greater
the accused, piling on charges that are not up-
Indigent defense is “the most important work
group than public defenders,” says Coggiola.
held by the evidence. A public defender works to get that pile whittled down to a fair outcome
a lawyer can do,” he says. Currently, Goemann is the head of the Virginia
Some of the hard parts of this job are also the
that fits the evidence that the government
reasons to do it…
actually has.
Being the only person to stand by another can
Still, there was one type of case that Coggiola
be its own reward.
couldn’t do: animal torture. She does not
Public Defender Commission in Richmond. It is important to represent people who are being singled out or vilified; it’s “meaningful work,” says Goemann, “it really made a differ-
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know why, with all the terrible things done to Some poor people just assume that they will
people that she heard of over the years, but
continued on back