NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE FACULTY

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).