This Virginia county is finally getting a public defender’s office. It’s a step in the right direction

“IF YOU could change anything about the criminal justice system, if you had a magic wand, where would you start?” Community organizers in Prince William County posed that question to hundreds of prison inmates, ex-offenders and their families. Most said the same thing: They would start with legal representation. “Many of them were indigent defendants who had court-appointed attorneys,” explained the Rev. Keith Savage of the First Baptist Church of Manassas. “They said they didn’t feel like their appointed attorney fought for them.”