“Many of the homeless in our community are serving life-sentences in prison, one month at a time”. We need to re-think our justice system if we are to provide real justice for all in the coming decades. What can a truly just community-based system look like? Francis Adewale was admitted to the Washington State Bar in June 2000. He is H. George Frederickson Honors Graduate of Eastern Washington University. Francis was born in Nigeria and was sworn in as an American citizen in 2005. He has served as Assistant Public Defender for the City of Spokane, since May 2001. He is one of the attorneys that helped establish Spokane Community Court. Francis is 2013 recipient of City of Spokane Human Rights Award, and 2014 Spokane County Bar Association Smithmoore P. Myers Professionalism Award and 2017 recipient of the WACDL President’s Award. His talk will expound on a unique program that seeks to address this problem by moving people out of jail into housing, treatment, social services, reduce ER usage, while participants give back to the community through community service.
