Public Defense

I set it up to send me news stories involving Public Defender Investigators, which is how I often get a lot of the topics that I end up blogging about. Why am I explaining this to you? Well, this morning I received a great story that appeared in TCPalm.Com (an online and subscription newspaper out of Florida) written by Derek Simmonsen. The story was about an intern program being run by Private Investigator's and the Chief Investigator for 19th Judicial Circuit Public Defender's Office in Florida:

The Public Defender's Office holds several of these training sessions a year, led by private investigators Kreyling, Brandon Perron and Sandy Warner, chief investigator for the Public Defender's Office.

Over the course of the four-month program, a group of about 15 students learns how to conduct interviews at the jail and with witnesses on the street, take photos of crime scenes, read and analyze police reports and conduct surveillance. As part of their training, they take on real assignments from assistant public defenders and actually play a role in criminal cases.

Public Defender Diamond Litty said with 21,000 cases in 2006 ? and only one-full time and one part-time investigator on staff ? the interns are a tremendous help, allowing paid staff to work on more serious cases. Since the program began 14 years ago, interns have donated more than 100,000 hours of investigative time and the program has been presented to other public defender offices around the state.