Public Defender (2024)
It is not a job that anyone would be angling for. Who wants to be the public defender fighting for those going to trial for their involvement in the January 6th riots. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it. And, in Andrea Kalin’s documentary Public Defender that person is Heather Shaner, a tiny blue-haired lawyer whose been fighting potentially lost causes for the last four decades. She’s not in it for the money, and she’s certainly not in it because she agrees with the political leanings of her clients, but because she agrees that they are people who were not among those smashing windows. They were there because they believed in something.
That’s the mission of Shaner, a liberal who doesn’t share the beliefs of her clients but firmly believes that they deserve a fair trial. The film focuses on two. First is Jack Griffith, a social media showboat and far-right mouthpiece who went to the capitol on January 6th because he believed that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. The other is Annie Howell a single mother and painter whose life has been nearly destroyed by her presence at the capitol that day.
Heather is a humanist who has a bedrock belief in fair play. She sees them from the outside much as any of us might, but as she gets to know them she sees them as passionate people who got caught up in their beliefs and didn’t go to the White House to do anyone any harm. She doesn’t believe in their cause but she is willing to listen, willing to believe that they have a right to their own beliefs but were they guilty by association?
At a moment in our political history when we are set on demonizing the “other side”, a movie like Public Defender makes an interesting case. Can we look at each other and respect them for what they believe even if we don’t agree with them?
About the Author: Jerry Roberts
Jerry Roberts is a film critic and operator of two websites, Armchair Cinema and Armchair Oscars. 
