Prosecutors and defense attorneys work the same cases, pace the same courthouses, and pour thousands of hours into studying the same laws. But as both will eagerly tell you, being a prosecutor and being a defender are wildly different experiences, ones that lead to radically different perspectives on the bias of our legal system and how a courtroom ought to be run most fairly.

It should be obvious, then, that judges should come from both sides of the courtroom. In order to move closer to our ideal of egalitarian courtrooms in which evidence is presented and weighed fairly and meaningful justice is done, we cannot marginalize the experience of defenders. However, that is exactly what is happening with judicial appointments, which draw overwhelmingly from prosecutors while those who protect people from the worst practices of the criminal legal system are left in the cold.

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