Next Monday, November 3, 2014, Robin Steinberg, Bronx Defenders Executive Director, will be speaking at UCLA School of Law. Her talk, “Perspectives on Holistic Criminal Defense – The Bronx Defenders and the Growing Community Defender Movement,” is presented by the The David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy and co-sponsored by the Critical Race Studies…
The ArchCity Defenders, a holistic legal services office in St. Louis, released a white paper earlier this year detailing the injustices of the St. Louis County Municipal Courts. The report has received extensive coverage in both local and national media organizations, including The New York Times, National Public Radio, The Huffington Post, FiveThirtyEight, and the…
NEW YORK — Prisoners’ rights advocates and lawmakers on Tuesday welcomed the news that the top uniformed official at New York City’s Department of Correction, who has been accused of turning a blind eye to rampant violence in a Rikers Island juvenile detention facility, is stepping down. Chief of Department William Clemons, who climbed to…
The Bronx Defenders’ Holistic Defense model was recently highlighted in an extensive report commissioned by the Department of Justice Canada. The report, Maximizing the Federal Investment in Criminal Legal Aid, was prepared by Prairie Research Associates and documents innovations, best practices, and efficiencies in criminal legal aid in Canada and abroad. This report, one of…
The county’s Director of the Office of Assigned Counsel and a handful of staff members traveled to New York City last week thanks to a technical assistance grant from the Center for Holistic Defense. Thurston County’s Office of Assigned Counsel is one of only four teams in the nation to win a 2014-2015 technical assistance…
NEW YORK—Anthony Cruz is a different man now that he has been locked up several times. Before serving his 10-year sentence in New York state prisons for manslaughter in the first degree he was diagnosed with adjustment disorder and depression, among other mental health conditions. Cruz spent a total of three years in solitary confinement,…
Last Friday, October 17th, Bronx Defenders Civil Action Attorney Christa Douaihy, Criminal Defense Attorney Amalea Smirniotopoulos, and Family Defense Defense Attorney Lauren Teichner all presented at the New York State Defenders Association “Representing Veterans in New York Courts” conference in Albany. Their presentation, “Holistic Defense: Representing Veterans in Family Court and Beyond,” covered a range of topics…
“Several were younger than me, I can’t imagine myself in their places. These youths are completely dehumanized, they are called ‘bing monsters.’ It’s terrible to see that it is considered normal to brutalize youths this young.” – Skylar Albertson, Assistant to the Director, The Bronx Defenders “We have paid bail for 140 people, who were…
This Thursday, October 23rd, Emma Ketteringam, Managing Director of the Family Defense Practice, and Elizabeth Keeney, Managing Director of Social Work will be presenting at the 10th National Harm Reduction Conference in Baltimore, MD. The biannual conference, sponsored and organized by the Harm Reduction Coalition, is the only multidisciplinary gathering dedicated to improving the health and well-being of…
This week, Senator Charles Schumer proposed making trespassing on “critical infrastructure” — bridges, buildings, and the like — a federal offense, punishable by up to five years in prison. He pointed to the pair of German artists who this summer allegedly scaled the Brooklyn Bridge and replaced its American flags with white flags; a Russian…
“Every day, advocates at our office witness firsthand how the promise of due process held out by the 5th Amendment is unrealized by our non-citizen clients solely because of immigration status. Whenever ICE has lodged a detainer against a non-citizen client and the client’s criminal case carries potential immigration consequences, that client is unable to…
Written Comments of The Bronx Defenders New York City Council Joint Meeting of the Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services and the Committee on Juvenile Justice Good afternoon. My name is Dave Casellas, and I work as a client coordinator at The Bronx Defenders. In this role, I help Bronx Defenders clients and their families…
The multitude of black men killed by police led Maryam Monalisa Gharavi to call these last months “the Summer of Death” in her New Inquiry essay “The Killing Class.” In New York, police strangled grandfather Eric Garner. In Ohio, police gunned down John Crawford III in a Walmart while he was checking out an air…
It has been a very exciting year for the The Bronx Defenders’ Center for Holistic Defense! In May, we hosted the first annual Holistic Defense Symposium, which brought together representatives from 24 different organizations that are working to adopt holistic practices. In the coming weeks, we will begin meeting with our latest group of technical assistance sites. Since 2010,…
“Thanks to the City Council’s groundbreaking leadership on this issue, dozens of the Bronx residents we have represented are home with their families, supporting their children, and contributing to their communities” said Robin Steinberg, Executive Director of The Bronx Defenders. “The proposed expansion will mean fairness and justice for more immigrant families in the Bronx.”…
The disturbing use of civil forfeiture by many cities and states to line their coffers has been on the rise, and Last Week Tonight took up the topic and framed it the only way most of us can understand: In the guise of a Law & Order episode. As The New Yorker put it in…
The Bronx Defenders Criminal Defense Attorney Porsha Shaf’on Venable was featured in a piece by NY City Lens, a news website produced by students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, talking about her passion for being a public defender and serving the Bronx community: Public defender Shaf’on Venable wants to make a difference in her…
In this week’s New Yorker, I wrote about a sixteen-year-old boy from the Bronx named Kalief Browder, who was accused of robbery and confined on Rikers Island. He stayed there for three years, waiting for a trial that never happened. For the majority of that time, he was in solitary confinement, locked in a cell…
The Bronx Defenders is excited to share the news announced in a press release published by U.S. Congressman José E. Serrano yesterday that the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance has awarded renewed funding to The Bronx Defenders Center for Holistic Defense: Sep 29, 2014 | Issues: The Bronx Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Congressman José…
The 8th Amendment bans cruel and unusual punishment. Yet it happens every day in prisons across the country. Putting aside capital punishment, which I would argue is cruel and unusual on its face, Americans are ignoring a host of horrific conditions that inmates are subjected to. This is not only morally and constitutionally dangerous; it…
Bronx Defenders Criminal Defense Attorney Colby Dillon was featured this month in Northwestern University School of Law’s Children and Family Justice Center blog, Youth Matters, in their “Ask an Alum” column, speaking about her experience as a new public defender at The Bronx Defenders. Colby (JD ’13) works as a juvenile attorney at The Bronx Defenders in…
Yesterday, September 21, 2014, Bronx Defenders Family Defense Practice Supervising Attorney Mary Anne Mendenhall joined in a compelling discussion on NFL player Adrian Peterson’s ongoing child abuse case, offering keen insights into the experiences and challenges faced by Bronx Defenders clients in Bronx Family Court. The episode of Hot 97’s “Street Soldiers” with host Lisa Evers brought…
Keston Jones, Bronx Defenders Parent Advocate, will present at the New York State Social Work Education Association’s Conference on October 9, 2014. His talk is entitled “Focus on Fathers: Myths and Misconceptions about Low Income African American and Minority Fathers.” The presentation flows from Keston’s work with The Bronx Defenders Focus on Fathers project, which was developed to…
On Friday, September 19, 2014 at 2:30 PM Eastern, The Bronx Defenders Criminal Defense Attorney Mark Loudon-Brown will be instructing a National Association for Public Defense webinar entitled “DNA Basics for the Defense – A Primer to Get You Started.” The webinar will focus on the basics of DNA evidence, examining what DNA evidence is,…
Given the ever-increasing reliance on forensic evidence in the justice system, particularly in the areas of criminal defense and family defense, The Bronx Defenders has created a Forensic Practice Group as a resource for attorneys from all practice specialties within the office.