COVER STORY
Jessie Morris
2021 SCBA ATTORNEY OF THE YEAR By Barbara Takei
Barbara Takei, Public Historian
I
n 2021, for the first time in the history of the Sacramento County Bar Association’s Attorney of the Year award, the organization is giving the award to a Public Defender, honoring Jessie Morris, Jr. with the Association’s highest recognition. An Assistant Public Defender in the Sacramento County Public Defender’s office since 2008, previously Morris served as the Chief Deputy Public Defender in Yolo County’s Public Defender’s Office, and in earlier decades maintained a criminal defense practice. Morris is recognized for the innovative social justice organizing work he has done over the past several years and over a lifetime, to empower attorneys of color and address racial, ethnic, religious, gender and other biases within the legal profession. One of his most meaningful projects, says Morris, has been his work helping those suffering from lack of housing. His expungement
6
work takes him to sites like Loaves and Fishes “where those without housing can gather for necessities like a meal, and clothing, and emergency shelter,” he says. “It’s the ideal place to meet people who could use help expunging records and to help them move on in their lives.” Over the past four decades in the U.S., one in three people has
SACRAMENTO LAWYER | Fall 2021 | www.sacbar.org
acquired some type of criminal record, criminal statistics and ACLU reports show. Typically, these are minor non-violent crimes that will appear on a routine background check, that disparately and negatively impact black Americans and other people of color — creating barriers to jobs, housing, education — essentially creating a life sentence of poverty for the individual
Jessie Morris in the Sacramento Bee, June 9, 2020. Public Defender’s rally at the Sacramento County Courthouse calling for justice reform. “Stop putting a knee on our clients’ necks!”
Photo credit: Daniel Kim/Sacramento Bee/ZUMA Press Wire.
