Justice & Public Safety Cabinet
Administrative Office of the Courts
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Updated Trial Law Notebook
Click here to download our newly-updated 2012 Trial Law Notebook.
The notebook begins with a section on general trial law which is organized alphabetically by topic. After that, though, the materials are organized in the sequence in which they would most likely be used during a trial. So, beginning with the section on juries, the notebook is designed so that an attorney can more or less follow the course of a trial by simply turning the pages of the notebook as the trial goes on.
One feature which sets this notebook apart from others is the Practice Tips. They are not meant to suggest what must be done in any situation to be either effective or ethical, but each one has been “learned the hard way” by some attorney who failed to preserve an important issue or otherwise got “burned” by a different practice. Special thanks to the people in appeals for most of them.
This third edition of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy Trial Law Notebook contains opinions of the Kentucky Supreme Court and Kentucky Court of Appeals through February, 2012 and also takes note of many of the innovations introduced by HB 463 on June 8, 2011. About nine pages of new material have been added to this edition as well as a few new charts.
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The Advocate |
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DPA February 2012 Advocate
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Reading The Advocate is now more convenient than ever! In addition to our published version, the DPA is now offering a regularly-updated digital version. The Advocate Online is a vital source of information for:
- HB 463 news and updates
- Summaries of Kentucky Supreme Court and Court of Appeals criminal opinions
- And much more!
Click below to sign up for the email, Twitter and/or Facebook notifications for new entries to The Advocate Online.
 Click here to sign up for email updates
 Click to sign up for Twitter updates
 Click here to sign up for Facebook updates
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Our Mission |
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To provide each client with high quality services through an effective delivery system, which ensures a defender staff dedicated to the interests of their clients and the improvement of the criminal justice system.
The Department of Public Advocacy is an independent agency attached for administrative purposes to the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet headed by J. Michael Brown, Secretary. DPA is the statewide public agency providing public defender service in all of Kentucky's 120 counties as will as Kentucky's appellate courts.
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History of DPA |
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A half century ago the Kentucky Supreme Court held that "common justice demands" that an attorney must be appointed when a person charged with a felony is too poor to hire his own counsel. Gholson v. Commonwealth, 212 S.W.2d 537 (Ky. 1948). In the 1960s Kentucky attorneys began to request compensation when they were forced to represent indigents charged with a crime. In 1963, the United States Supreme Court determined that if a state wants to take away a person's liberty, it has to provide an attorney to those persons too poor to hire their own in order to comply with the Federal Constitution. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). While consistently unsuccessful in convincing Kentucky's highest Court that the judiciary could and should order payment, Kentucky's appointed attorneys did persuade the Kentucky Supreme Court to the point that the Court began to directly encourage the General Assembly to provide a systematic solution for paying the attorneys who were being made to represent the accused
On September 22, 1972, Kentucky's highest Court characterized the forced representation of indigents as an "intolerable condition" and held it was an unconstitutional taking of an attorney's property - his service to the client - without compensation. From then on no Kentucky attorney could be required to represent an indigent absent compensation. Bradshaw v. Ball, 487 S.W.2d 294 (Ky. 1972).
While the appeal in Bradshaw was pending, the 1972 Legislature, at the request of Governor Wendell Ford, created the Office of Public Defender, now the Department of Public Advocacy (DPA), and gave it the responsibility to represent all persons in Kentucky charged with or convicted of a crime. House Bill 461 sponsored by Representatives Kenton, Graves and Swinford passed the House 60-18 on March 7, 1972 and the Senate 26-5 on March 14, 1972. It allocated $1,287,000 for FY 73 and FY 74.
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