What is "public defender"

n. a lawyer who represents indigent defendants at public expense

A public defender is an attorney appointed to represent people who cannot afford to hire one. It is also a literal translation of the Spanish language term abogado de oficio, which usually refers to an ombudsman office; it is also the English language title of the Jamaican ombudsman.

Brazil is the only country where an office of government-paid lawyers, with the specific purpose of providing legal assistance and representation to the destitute, free of charge, is established in the Constitution. In the United States, a 1963 US Supreme Court case Gideon v. Wainwright ruled that the Sixth Amendment of the Bill of Rights requires the government to provide free legal counsel to indigent defendants in criminal cases. Many other countries provide people with public defenders.

Public defender offices in Brazil had its origin in the State of Rio de Janeiro, where on May 5, 1897, a decree established free legal assistance in the Federal District (then the city of Rio de Janeiro).

With its constitutional mission of ensuring the constitutional principles of access to justice and equality between the persons, and the right to enforce rights and fundamental freedoms (the right to have rights), Brazil stands out nationally and internationally as one of the most important public institutions, primarily committed to democracy, equality and building a more just and caring society.

Public defender offices are the state agency that provides full and free legal assistance to people who do not have the funds to pay the costs of these services, according to the Federal Constitution of Brazil. This is because the full and free legal assistance to the poor is a right and a fundamental guarantee of citizenship, inserted in the art. 5 of the Constitution of the Republic, LXXIV item. Also, the Constitution requires the Union to the States of Brazil and the Brazilian Federal District to provide those rights directly through the public defenders Office. The Constitution that the public defender office is installed across the country, similar to the supplemental law in paragraph one of art.134 (LC 80/94). Gratuity of justice covers legal fees, expert testimony and court costs, as well as extrajudicial ones.

In the United States, a public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who cannot afford to hire an attorney. The 1963 US Supreme Court case Gideon v. Wainwright held that the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel provision requires the government to provide legal counsel to indigent defendants in criminal cases.

Different jurisdictions, however, use different approaches in providing legal counsel for criminal defendants who can't afford private attorneys. Under the federal system and most common among the states is through a publicly funded public defender office. Typically, these offices function as an agency of the federal, state or local government and, as such, these attorneys are compensated as salaried government employees. This approach provides a substantial majority of the indigent criminal defense representation in the United States. An example of this model is the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.

In addition to government-based offices, there are also a smaller but significant number of not-for-profit agencies, often referred to as a "Defender Service" or a "Legal Aid Society" that provide indigent criminal defense services. These entities tend to rely heavily on indirect sources, public funding, and charitable contributions to meet their operating costs. Notable not-for-profit public defense agencies in the U.S. include Gideon's Promise and The Bronx Defenders.