Bach honored by Florida public defender’s office

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Amy Bach of Rochester, author of “Ordinary Injustice, How America Holds Court” and founder of Measures for Justice, recently received the Gideon Award from Palm Beach County Public Defender Carey Haughwout and the staff of the Office of the Public Defender.

The award recognizes Bach’s efforts to support equal justice for indigent communities.

Since 2003, Palm Beach County’s Office of Public Defender has honored someone whose work exemplifies the spirit of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, which assures legal representation for poor people in criminal matters.

Bach founded Measures for Justice in April 2011 to address problems she researched for her book, which won the 2010 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. The book takes an inside look into the nation’s local criminal court system, revealing widespread patterns of errors invisible to the very people working within it.

MFJ’s mission is to flag and fix systemic problems in the lower criminal courts across the United States by devising a Justice Index that will gauge how well or poorly criminal courts are performing basic legal services, and use the data to promote change.

For additional information, visit www.measuresforjustice.org.