Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

As a public defender in California and New York, Emily Galvin Almanza became frustrated by an overburdened justice system focused on locking people up while having, she says, “essentially zero impact on the crime rate.” Time and again, she saw ordinary peoples’ lives upended by the court system. So she co-founded an organization, Partners for Justice, aimed at supporting and empowering public defenders. Now operating in more than 20 states, the group places advocates in public defenders’ offices to help clients find stable housing, employment and other services . . . and stay out of jail.  In her new book, The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender's Search for Justice in America, Galvin Almanza draws on these first-hand experiences and the latest crime data to argue that institutional decisions, such as prosecutorial incentives, policing tactics, or even when a judge has lunch, can have disastrous impacts on people who find themselves in the judicial process.  She looks at h