We hope you’ve heard by now that CDPL’s Osborn Event is coming up on September 23 in Durham. (Register here.) We want to be sure you also know that, in addition to presenting the Arc of Justice Award to Adam Stein, we’ll be honoring an innovative organization that forever changed indigent defense in North Carolina. The Fair Trial Initiative was founded 25 years ago this year, and its legacy lives on at CDPL.
Founded in 2001, FTI’s goal was to attract some of the state’s brightest young lawyers and mitigation investigators and help them gain experience by working alongside esteemed attorneys and experts. The fundamental belief was that indigent defendants deserve the same high-quality representation as wealthy clients with private lawyers.
Over ten years, FTI trained dozens of lawyers and mitigation investigators, many of whom have gone on to defend people on North Carolina’s death row. Many others have become respected attorneys, public defenders, community leaders, and teachers helping to shape a more just society.
“I did not go into law thinking I wanted to be a death penalty lawyer,” says Deonte’ Thomas, a former FTI Fellow who is now Wake County’s Chief Public Defender and a CDPL board member. “They absolutely changed my worldview on that.”
After his time at FTI, Thomas served as counsel on a capital trial. Now, as a public defender, he works to persuade Wake prosecutors not to pursue the death penalty, an excessive and cruel punishment that disproportionately targets people of color and those with backgrounds of poverty and trauma.
As an FTI Fellow, Thomas’ first trial was alongside J. Kirk Osborn, a legendary defense attorney who was known for his compassion and integrity, and for whom our Osborn Event is named. They defended a 17-year-old boy who is now out of prison. Thomas said Osborn set an example that shaped the attorney he is today.
“He knew the law, but he also knew how to talk to regular people,” Thomas says. “He gave me a lot of respect, even before he really knew me. And he was just so smooth and suave handling these cases, wearing his nice suits. He was doing indigent defense work, but doing it at the highest level. It didn’t matter that his clients weren’t paying, they were still getting the best lawyer with him.”
Many FTI alums have been part of CDPL’s staff over the years, and one of our mitigation investigators Zach Rowles was trained as an FTI fellow. Today, CDPL tries to fill the hole FTI left behind.
Training and mentorship are central to everything we do at CDPL. Through our internship and externship programs and through our hiring of young attorneys, we see it as our role to ensure that North Carolina’s capital defense bar remains strong for generations to come. Our newest attorneys work alongside experienced teams on capital and non-capital trials, gaining critical experience and learning to connect with clients who have often felt powerless in the criminal legal system.
“The Fair Trial Initiative no longer exists in the same form, but the methods it developed for training young lawyers and mitigation specialists, those are very much alive at CDPL,” said CDPL Executive Director Shelagh Kenney. “We are so lucky to have had this organization, and we will always strive to live up to the standards it set.”
Please help us celebrate FTI’s legacy on Sept. 23. Buy tickets and sponsorships here.