King Association Holds 33rd Prayer Breakfast

Filmmaker and her subject are keynote speakers.

Twelve million people are arrested in the United States each year, and millions of their cases will proceed through the criminal justice system.

It is not uncommon for public defenders to handle hundreds of cases at a time. What does this mean for the American system of justice?

At its 33rd annual Prayer Breakfast at the Grove Park Inn on Saturday, January 18, at 8:30 a.m., the Martin Luther King, Jr. Association of Asheville and Buncombe County will showcase two people whose work is a direct response to the challenge of addressing injustice in the U.S. court system.

New York-based attorney and filmmaker Dawn Porter, and Georgia public defender Travis Williams are at the forefront of seeking justice for those without resources. In her award-winning documentary Gideon’s Army, Ms. Porter chronicles the lives of Mr. Williams and two other public defenders in the Deep South who struggle against long hours, low pay, and staggering caseloads to ensure justice for their clients.

Gideon’s Army premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and was shown on HBO Documentary Films that July, where it won a best editing award. It also garnered critical praise from The New York Times and The Village Voice, and Porter won the 2011 Creative Promise Award for the film.

Before becoming a filmmaker, Porter was Director of News Standards and Practices at ABC News, and Vice President of Standards and Practices at A&E Networks. A graduate of Swarthmore College and the Georgetown University Law Center, she was a practicing attorney at Baker & Hostetler and ABC Television Networks before beginning her television career.

Williams was born in Atlanta, GA, while his mother was on the run after escaping from department of corrections custody. He was left at the hospital and later taken to Florida, where he experienced first-hand the encounters between poor people and law enforcement. His experiences informed and shaped his views on justice and instilled in him a desire to become a fighter for the underclass.

He excelled in college despite experiencing homelessness and other struggles while a student, and graduated from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in 2005 with a degree in business administration. After earning his law degree from the University of Georgia, he was hired as an assistant public defender at the Hall County, GA Public Defender’s office, where he still works.

Named the 2011 Assistant Public Defender of the Year by the Georgia Association of Circuit Public Defenders, Williams was honored as a “Rising Lawyer Under 40” by the Daily Report, a Georgia legal publication in 2012.

Williams has won more than two-thirds of the jury trials he has tried; of approximately 20 appeals, he has been granted five reversals by the Georgia Court of Appeals. A volunteer with the Boys and Girls Club of Hall County, he lives in Gainesville, GA.

The MLK Prayer Breakfast will be held at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, January 18, 2014 at the Grand Ballroom of the Omni Grove Park Inn.

Tickets are $30 for adults, $15 for youth 12 and under, and are available online at www.mlkasheville.org or by calling (828) 335-6896. Parking will be free in the outdoor parking lots, and some spaces in the garage will be available. For more information, contact MLK Association chair Oralene Simmons at (828) 281-1624.

A free public screening of Gideon’s Army will take place at 7 p.m. on Friday, January 17 at Lipinsky Auditorium on the campus of UNC Asheville, followed by a question-and-answer session with Porter and Williams.