. >> we are talking with karen houppert. tell us a little bit about "chasing gideon." >> i worked on this book for a year and a half and it's tied to the 50th anniversary of the supreme court decision gideon versus wainwright and 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 since the landmark decision. so, i found there is a huge crisis in the courts that public defenders are grossly overworked some of the public defenders i have talked who are carrying as many cases as 700 at a time so what i tried to do in the book was to write a book about this crisis in the court but that was written for general readers, not lawyers because one of the driving questions in my book was how can everybody that is involved in the court system, judges, prosecutors public defenders, cops all recognize that the system is broken and there's this huge crisis and not do anything? so i went in with that question and i think the answer i wal