(The following information was provided by the Montgomery
County Office of Communications.)
The Montgomery County Commissioners yesterday approved the
appointment of Christine P. Lora, Esq. as Chief of the County’s Public Defender
Office. The hiring marks the culmination of a three-year process that has
brought substantive reforms to the county justice system to ensure that every
accused person in Montgomery County receives a zealous defense regardless of
their ability to pay for it.
A Montgomery County native, Lora served as senior trial
attorney for more than eight years for the Defender Association of Philadelphia,
where she represented hundreds of clients facing criminal charges. She spent
the last two years as managing director of a private firm in Chester County, and
most recently has been handling the criminal practice at Miller, Turetsky, Rule
and McLennan in Collegeville.
Now, she has decided to return to her calling, saying she is
a “public defender in heart and soul.”
“I believe there is no greater calling than to serve
indigent defendants in the way they desire and deserve,” Lora said. “I believe
we must prioritize communities and families, and advance policies that champion
integration and rehabilitation. I also believe in balancing our community’s
attention and resources to the underlying causes of criminal prosecution. Above
all, I believe in the lawyers and professionals like those in the Montgomery
County Public Defender Office who dedicate themselves to this admirable
vocation.”
Two senior public defenders, Greg Nester and Carol Sweeney,
have guided the office for the past three years as co-chief public defenders as
they successfully advocated for substantive reforms within the county justice
system on behalf of their clients. For example, defendants who cannot afford a
lawyer now have one with them at their initial court appearance and
arraignment.
In addition, the court, supported by the county and other
stakeholders, has reformed the bail system, and streamlined the pre-trial
process to make sure people are not unnecessarily detained before they go to
trial while also maintaining public safety. The court has also revamped how it
will manage probation hearings and potential probation violation issues,
significantly reducing the amount of time individuals will wait in prison for
an initial hearing to be scheduled. These reforms and others have safely
reduced the population at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility by 50%
compared to 2018.
“I congratulate Greg and Carol for the way they successfully
led the office, especially through the pandemic, which made it challenging for
our dedicated public defenders to represent clients, which you can’t do
remotely,” said County Commissioners’ Chair Kenneth E. Lawrence. “We are proud
of the significant reforms that have been made over these past three years in
the pursuit of a more equitable justice system. Now, with Christine joining the
County to lead the public defender team, we feel certain this progress will
continue and even more will be made. I want to thank members of the Public
Defender Advisory Board and their chair, Professor Paul Heaton of the
University of Pennsylvania law school, for their extraordinary work and
dedication in selecting and recommending the most highly qualified candidates
possible to lead these efforts forward.”
The County Commissioners established the advisory board last
year to bring community-wide input into developing best practices and to
recommend top candidates for the chief public defender position. The
commissioners took that step after contracting with Temple University’s law
school to produce recommendations on how to strengthen the public defender
office and make it as independent as possible under Pennsylvania law.
“Playing a role in the selection of Ms. Lora as Chief Public
Defender was obviously an important part of our job, which is to strengthen
indigent defense generally and our public defenders specifically,” said
Professor Heaton. “To the commissioners’ credit, they elevated the value of
public defender independence by allowing the advisory board to serve a
screening role. We evaluated all the applications that came in; developed an
extensive list of questions including how applicants would stand up for the
rights of clients and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; conducted
interviews; and forwarded three very strong finalists for the job.”
The advisory committee represents diverse perspectives from
the Montgomery County community. Aside from Heaton, the board includes vice
chair, criminal attorney Geoffrey Hood of Horsham, attorney Katy Daly from the
Curtin and Heefner law firm in Doylestown, Brush With the Law artist and
director Maria Maneos, JEVS executive director for justice partnerships Jeffrey
Abramowitz, president of the NAACP Cheltenham branch Eddie Graham, Philly
Lawyers law firm (in Jenkintown) attorney R. Emmitt Madden, and
Coalition4Justice President and CEO Dr. Bernadine Ahonkhai.
Ahonkhai said she came into the process with the goal of
finding a transformative leader for the office.
“One of the things that I personally pushed for, as I have
done during my years of being active in the community, was to find someone who
is responsive to the needs of the Black and brown community in the county,” she
said. “So, I was very happy that we found someone with great strength and
leadership skills and knowledge of public defense who is not afraid to shake
things up to build a stronger public defender office. Christine was my top
choice among the candidates we sent to the commissioners, but all three finalists
were excellent. I’m gratified they listened to us.”
Maria Maneos said she was extremely impressed with the way
Lora uses data to look for alternative solutions to help clients.
“She makes everything in the process about the client and
not just the system the client has found themselves in,” said Maneos, who has
had family members who were clients of the defender office. “She is asking the
important questions like ‘why are there so many incarcerations,’ and what are
we doing to potentially look at the problems that may have led to the charges.
I’d like to see the system become more rehabilitative than purely punitive, and
I feel that Christine has that belief as well. Maybe the defender’s office and
the system can help the client before their problem gets worse and they ruin
their life.”
Christine Lora will begin her new position in mid-July.