When there is an area with a lack of affordable, fresh food, it is often referred to as a food desert. Likewise, at least according to the North Carolina State Bar, when there are not enough lawyers in one place, it is called a legal desert.
The North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts identified Halifax County as one such desert in northeastern North Carolina, with only about one attorney for every 1,000 people. So this year, the office created a new group of public defenders there.
WUNC’s Will Michaels spoke with Tonza Ruffin, the lead public defender in District 7, about her goals for the new office.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
When you were sworn in this year, you said, “Our goal is not to shove people through the court system but to make connections with the people we represent.” What have you done to work toward that goal?
Even though I’m from Bertie County, this is where my family is from, I will say, as a private practitioner, I was busy practicing law. Since being sworn in as the chief public defender, my focus has been on getting into the community and figuring out what’s available.
As you probably know, the court system deals with a lot of people that struggle with issues like substance abuse, mental health issues, employment issues and poverty is very real in the community that I serve. If a person has a serious substance abuse issue, they shouldn’t be sitting in jail. They need treatment. And in our resource manual, we have access to the mobile crisis line that Trillium has. That’s a resource that I wasn’t aware of as a private practitioner, so I’ve been really focused on connecting those dots.
I wonder if we could talk about some more examples of just what the community needs out there. Some felony cases can take nearly two years to process.
As a private practitioner, we spent a lot of time running from courthouse to courthouse to try to address the needs of our clients, and that can often be overwhelming. The great thing about the public defender’s office is that we get to focus solely on representing our clients in criminal courts, juvenile courts, and so my hope, my plan, is that people are not sitting in custody for long periods of time.
If one of your goals was to, or has been and still is, to not just push people through the system and really represent them, connect with them, what would your goal be in the next year?
What I would like to see is our community addressing the issues with young people, because we’ve seen an uptick in violence with young people. Years ago, I had a nonprofit, Esquires for Education while I was in private practice, where my goal was to try to show young African American men that they could go to college and expose them to experiences that they hadn’t been exposed to, so that they could see themselves in that position.
What you’re trying to do is to keep members of your community from having to be your client at all.
Absolutely. I know that sounds crazy, because it would put me out of a job, but I would love to see a day where our communities are peaceful, everyone is thriving and able to take care of themselves, and we’re dealing with the issues that need to be dealt with, so you don’t have so many people going through the criminal justice system.
