“I don't know how you can defend someone that you don’t even talk to.”
Excerpt from Debbie, family member of a defendant at the Palo Alto Courthouse in winter 2023
Debbie: He's using a public defender.
Interviewer: Mhm.
Debbie: And, as soon as this case is settled and we're all done, I will be…I will be, um…I don't know what the quite word is. I will be doing a lot of research on this justice system and getting, it corrected. Working to get it corrected.
Interviewer: Mm.
Debbie: So, this--The public defender has called my grandson, not one time in nine months, has he spoken to him, let him know what's going on, told him anything. My--He told me to have my grandson call him on Sundays in the office. My grandson calls on Sunday. He never takes his call. He'll call and say, you know, ‘I'll call you back at 1:00. Will you please answer?’ Never once did he answer the phone. Never once did he come visit him. He didn't even know that he had an infected foot. They had to take him by ambulance. I had to call the county—my, um, um, Cindy Chavez--Our county supervisor and asked her to please do something about this. My grandson was telling me how huge his foot was. It's all infected. He couldn't walk on it. The sheriff's office and the others did nothing. And that night, he got a doctor there and they took him by ambulance the next day to Valley Medical, and so had it been two more days, he would have lost his foot.
Interviewer: Ugh.
Debbie: His attorney doesn't even know about that.
Interviewer: Mm.
Debbie: I have--I don't know how you can defend someone, that you don't even talk to. I don't like that you--These young people get in court, they are, these fast-talking public defenders, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, ‘You gotta make a decision on your life in 30 seconds.’ No, that doesn't fly with me. And I advised my grandson to never, ever agree to anything or sign anything unless he 100% understood it. And they asked the public defender to come talk to his mother and I, out in the hallway, about the issue first.
Interviewer: Mmm.
