. >> were talking to karen hooper at the national press club. tell us a little bit about chasing getting in. >> well, i worked on this book for a year and a half in the tied to the 50th anniversary of the supreme court institution, gideon versus wainwright. my initial idea was to go out and take the temperature across the country to see how this issue of the rights to counsel has played out in the last 50 years since the landmark decision. so i found a huge crisis in the court of public defenders are mostly over were. some of the public defenders were carrying as many cases a 700 at a time. so what i've tried to do in the book is to read a book about this crisis in the court. it is a book written for general readers, not lawyers because one of the driving questions in my book was how can everybody that's involved in the court system, judges, prosecutors, public defenders all recognized the system is broken, that there is this huge crisis and not do anything? so i went in with a question. the answer i walked out with his most people outside of th

. >> i'm going to start on my right to your left here and introduce karen hooper, the author of chasing gideon and i just want to announce that she will be holding a book signing. the book came out yesterday. she will have a book signing during lunch. next is don porter, the producer of gideon's army. the clip we just saw. don is a founder of trilogy films and director of gideon's army. it premiered in the 2010 sundance festival. she's an a -- she's on the 2012 hot shot directors emerging to watch, she's also graduated from georgetown university law center and practicing attorney and abc television networks before starting her television career and next is john. i met john about 10 years ago when he was starting off and had this crazy idea of operating a training center for public defenders and he did. he's no now the president and founder and one of the contributors to gideon's army, he's from john marshall law school where he teaches law and criminal procedure. he was in the post katrina and new orleans center. he trained people in the film. he received an advocacy fellowship and name

. >> i was just talking with karen hooper at the national festival.ell us a little bit about chasing gideon. >> i worked on this but for about a year-and-a-half and it is tied to the 50th anniversary of the supreme court decision gideon versus lorain -- wainwright. my initial idea was to go out and take the temperature across the country to see how this issue of the right to counsel has played out in the last 50 years says that landmark decision. so i found it -- there is a huge crisis in the court. public defenders are grossly overworked. some of the public defender's i talked to are carrying as many cases as 700 the time. so what i tried to do in the book was to write a book about his prices in the court. that was written for general readers out and everyone involved in the court system all recognize that is broken there is this huge crisis and not do anything. i went in with that question. i think the answer auto with is that most people outside of the judicial system don't know about these problems. so i rode to those people who are interested in