A native of Decatur, Ga., W. Devin Franklin is Movement Policy Counsel at the Southern Center for Human Rights. His present work focuses on supporting local movements in Georgia and community education and base building in matters related to policing violence, jail overcrowding and the connectedness of carceral systems and the harms experienced by communities.

He joined SCHR in March 2022 after working as a Senior Assistant Public Defender at the Office of the Circuit Public Defender-Atlanta Judicial Circuit for over 12 years, zealously advocating on the behalf of nearly 1500 indigent, accused persons charged with felony offenses. Devin is a graduate of Gideon’s Promise trial advocacy training program for Public Defenders and currently serves as a faculty member for the organization’s Core 101 programming.

Additionally, he is a recipient of the 2020 Gideon’s Promise Foot Soldier Award, an honor given in recognition of service to make equal justice a reality, and the 2024 ‘Commitment to GACDL Award’ given by the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Devin has served on the faculty of the Georgia Public Defender Council’s Advance Practice Workshop during its existence and is also on faculty for GACDL’s Bill Daniel’s Trial Advocacy Program and the National Criminal Defense College (NCDC). He has also served as Co-Chair and curator for the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ 2022 Winter Training, “Death to the Criminal Punishment Bureaucracy: The Evolution of Criminal Justice and the Revolution of Values in a Carceral Society”.

He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Hampton University (Hampton, Va) in Sports Management and a Juris Doctor from Mercer Law School (Macon, Ga).

Patrice Fulcher is the Director of Training for the Maryland Office of the Public Defender (OPD).  She joined OPD in 2015, and is responsible for heading the Agency’s Gideon’s Promise Certified New Hire Attorney Training Program, and developing/managing all other public defender training curriculum for OPD’s attorneys and core staff throughout the state. Prior to becoming OPD’s Director of Training, Patrice was a tenured Associate Professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School. Her scholarship and other publications focus on issues surrounding the Prison Industrial Complex; private prisons, forced prison labor, and jail/prison video visitation.  She has lectured extensively on these issues as well as the erosion of the 4th Amendment, client-centered representation, and effective storytelling techniques for defense attorneys throughout the U.S.

From 1995-2007, Patrice successfully represented indigent clients as a public defender in Georgia.  She handled capital cases, major felonies, and fought against unconditional jail conditions.  She did so while serving as a Senior Staff Attorney for the Georgia Capital Defender and the Fulton County Public Defender offices; as Senior Staff Attorney for the Fulton County Conflict Defender; and while working with the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Patrice has served as a Core Instructor for Gideon’s Promise, Inc. since its inception, and is a faculty member for the National Criminal Defense College.  She has also been a litigation instructor for The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, The Kentucky Death Penalty Institute, The Mississippi Office of the State Public Defender Training Division, The National Association for Public Defense, The American Bar Association NACDL National Defender Training Program, The National Legal Aid & Defender Association, and is a faculty member of the Harvard Law School Trial Advocacy Workshop. She received her J.D. from Emory University School of Law, and her B.A. from Howard University. Patrice is admitted to practice law in Georgia and Maryland.