Jed Cohen Capstone

Link to my research paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UvJzpZVXcmHOo2spzwKfZbein4YG5FfM/view?usp=drive_link

Link to the website I coded (site doesn’t work well on a phone, please access on a computer): https://capstone-nine-mu.vercel.app/

Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UCPA3__f5rflnCieB2efGecUzY5PGxRscATbTmYvCD8/edit?usp=sharing

For my Capstone I wrote a research paper about client-centered public defense. Client-centered public defense is when public defenders - lawyers who represent defendants who cannot afford a private attorney - view their obligation to their client as more than just resolving the client’s legal case. Client-centered defense involves forming a relationship with the client and addressing their needs and desires beyond the criminal case. To complete this paper, I spent the majority of the school-year doing research. I read five books and a number of articles related to this topic. I chose this project in part because I wanted to get more practice writing research papers before college. I ended up learning a lot both about researching and writing a paper as well as the American criminal justice system. My paper discusses some of the ways that the criminal justice system is failing defendants, but also how client-centered representation might address some of these problems.

After finishing my paper, I decided that I wanted to share what I had learned both about writing a paper and the criminal justice system while doing a little more learning. I eventually decided to code a website from scratch to share this information and get experience coding. Before this I had only created basic coding projects, so for the base of my website, I followed along with a tutorial. Once I had a functional website I changed and expanded some of the code to create a unique site that shares what I learned.