A panel of Ohio legal professionals discuss how a jailhouse lawyer changed history 50 years ago during the Ohio Supreme Court's Forum on the Law on May 23. The panelists explore the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Gideon v. Wainwright - the landmark case requiring states to provide counsel for indigent defendants under the Fourteenth Amendment. Panelists also address how the structure and funding of Ohio's indigent defense system impacts that promise and quality representation.

MODERATOR

Alan Michaels, Dean of The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, served as moderator. A former clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, he served as a prosecutor in New York for four years before joining OSU in 1995.

PANELISTS

Tim Young is director of the Office of the Ohio Public Defender, which provides and supports representation to poor defendants across Ohio. He currently serves as president of the American Council of Chief Defenders.

David Singleton is executive director of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center in Cincinnati. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he worked as a public defender in Harlem and Washington, D.C.

The Honorable Nick Selvaggio brings the perspective of a judge and former prosecutor to the discussion. He is serving his first term as judge on the Champaign County Common Pleas Court. From 1996 to 2012, he was the county's prosecuting attorney.