An Interview With Howard Franklin, Author Of 'Gideon’s Children'

For those disturbed by recent police brutality, misconduct, and shootings, Gideon's Children may be the perfect end-of-summer read.

“I had a dream that we was at peace / But I was so wrong… so wrong / Y’all too wrapped up in the bullshit and bias.” Dr. Dre and Anderson .Paak

After the highly anticipated “>Go Set a Watchman (affiliate link) was released earlier this year, many readers became disillusioned with Atticus Finch, America’s most revered attorney. In Harper Lee’s new book, our classic moral exemplar from the great American bestseller To Kill a Mockingbird (affiliate link) has allegedly devolved into a classic supporter of segregation. But Go Set a Watchman was never meant to be a sequel; rather, it was meant as the first manuscript or rough draft of the book generations have come to know and love. Part of the difficulty in coming to terms with Atticus is the murky chronology of his creation. In America, we often cling to our heroes and for many the new paradigm of this beloved character is just too much to accept.

Recently, Howard Franklin’s Gideon’s Children (affiliate link) was released with much less fanfare than Watchman, but I’d argue it is a classic in its own right. For readers looking for a new moral compass in the legal profession or for those disturbed by recent police brutality, misconduct, and shootings, this book may be the perfect end-of-summer read.

Gideon’s Children is set amidst the tumultuous 1960s and tells the story of the idealistic young men and women who staffed the newly formed and expanded Public Defender Offices after the Supreme Court’s momentous 1963 decision, which mandated the right to counsel when charged with a crime. For anyone interested in a compelling novel about public service, the justice system, and the historical events that have influenced our situation today, I highly recommend this book. After its release, I had the opportunity to interview Franklin about his magnum opus. Here are some excerpts from our discussion:

1. What inspired you to write the book?

The current decade, 2010 to 2020, is the 50th anniversary of the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement’s struggle for freedom and social justice. I wanted to highlight the role of the newly created Public Defenders Offices in fighting to protect individual constitutional rights in pursuit of justice, in particular for persons who are poor and of color, as part of that revolution, and because those very rights are under attack today due to the War on Terrorism which has spawned The Patriot Act, The No-Fly Rule, and virtually unrestricted spying on Americans by the FBI, CIA, and NSA.

2. Tell me about your career, what motivated you to become a public defender?

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Gideon v. Wainwright, which expanded the right to counsel when charged with a crime to persons unable to pay for same, was handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963, my first year in law school. And as I watched the Civil Rights Movement expand during 1964 and 1965, I realized that while the opportunity to participate in Freedom Rides and marches like Selma had passed, I could still join the struggle by becoming a Public Defender and fighting for justice in the courtroom through protecting individual constitutional rights and ensuring that poor people and people of color were treated equally and fairly.

3. If you could go back to any point in your career, what would you do differently?

My years as a Public Defender during the late 1960s and early 1970s were the most rewarding years of my 30-year legal career, so I wouldn’t do anything differently with respect to that period. Looking back at the years spent in private practice afterward, the one change that I would make is to have become much more involved in my local bar association, as well as the state bar association, so as to advocate that both groups work harder in designing and executing programs that foster social justice in the private sector, and use their influence to lobby local and state governments to prioritize programs to alleviate poverty and inequality.

4. What advice do you have for aspiring public service attorneys?

If you are going to be a Public Defender, nourish your passion for justice, and remind yourself daily that the work you are doing is both noble and valuable. Representing a fellow human being who is charged with a crime is lonely in the sense that you stand against the awesome power and resources of the State, and because the hostility focused against crime and your client spills over onto you, you will not be popular with the police authority, the prosecutor, court personnel, and often your own client. Therefore, it is essential that you maintain a strong sense of how noble and valuable your contribution is to our system of criminal justice is, so that you can fully appreciate the difficulty and the rewards of your work.

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5. What is the greatest injustice or discriminatory policy you believe we are fighting today? What are the biggest injustices we have overcome?

American society has a long history with the problem of race. It began with the importation of slavery at the time of Jamestown and the Pilgrims, and was further augmented with the extermination and subjugation of Native Americans. After 250 years of slavery and 150 more of Jim Crow, even though we achieved some progress during the Civil Rights Movement with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, this problem of race, of color, still bedevils our society, economically, politically, and in our criminal justice system. Several months ago, Nicholas Kristof in an op-ed raised and explored the question of: Is Everyone a Little Bit Racist? Inspired by his discussion, I explored the question in a blog post on my author’s website on January 19th, and just yesterday in a speech, James B. Comey, director of the FBI stated: “Maybe it’s a fact we should also face: Everyone makes judgments based on race.”

We are all human beings: average citizens, political leaders, police officers, teachers, CEOs of international corporations, and so on. And as human beings, consciously or unconsciously, we all make judgments based on race, as well as many other factors such as good looks, gender, status symbols, etc., but racial differences are at the top of the list for factors clouding our judgment. There is no easy solution to this problem, but what is necessary is for us to admit that this problem does exist, and for each of us to summon Lincoln’s better angels of our nature and remind ourselves daily to do better, to try harder to treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated.

6. Anything else we should know about your book?

I wholeheartedly hope that my novel, Gideon’s Children, will make a positive contribution by educating its readers about the workings of our criminal justice system and the critical need to improve those workings, as well as the equal importance of protecting our individual constitutional rights in the face of their abrogation by The Patriot Act, the No-Fly Rule, and the virtually unrestricted spying on Americans by the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA.


Renwei Chung is a 2L at Southern Methodist University School of Law. He has an undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Golden Rule: How Income Inequality Will Ruin America (affiliate link). He has been randomly blogging about anything and everything at Live Your Truth since 2008. He was born in California, raised in Michigan, and lives in Texas. He has a yellow lab named Izza and enjoys old-school hip hop, the NBA and stand up paddleboarding (SUP). He is really interested in startups, entrepreneurship, and innovative technologies. You can contact Renwei by email at projectrenwei@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn.