By Megan Sayles
AFRO Staff Writer
msayles@afro.com
Natasha M. Dartigue became the first person of color to lead the Maryland Office of the Public Defender in 2022. The attorney, 56, hails from Brooklyn, N.Y. She found herself in Baltimore for a clerkship after completing law school at Howard University in 1995.
It was this experience, under the late Judge Roger W. Brown, that sealed her fate in the world of public defense— something she never thought she would dedicate her life to.
“When I was in law school, if you had told me that I was going to do public defence—let alone be the public defender— I would have categorically told you that that was never going to happen,” said Dartigue.
During school, a stint at a legal clinic that required her to frequent the former Lorton Correctional Complex deterred her from pursuing criminal law altogether. She said she was terrified by the experience.
But, working with Brown changed her mind. Brown was a social worker before venturing into law, and Dartigue said he leveraged this service-centered background on the bench.
“You can imagine the respect, care and empathy he had. That was my first real experience dealing with the public, and I had the benefit of being under his tutelage to see how he treated people, regardless of their circumstances,” said Dartigue. “It was also my first time seeing the scrappiness of public defenders on a day-to-day level. I saw how they fought with a purpose.”
After a conversation with Brown, Dartigue realized she wanted to work with that same scrappiness. While television and movies can often incorrectly paint public defenders as underdogs or less capable compared to their private-sector counterparts, Dartigue said they are protectors of the Constitution.
Her office comprises nearly 1,100 employees, with nearly 600 being attorneys. They serve the most vulnerable and marginalized individuals across communities, and they are experts in criminal law. Their enormous caseload stands as their biggest challenge.
“Despite the fact that we don’t have equal resources with our state’s attorneys or law enforcement counterparts, we still continue to fight and do incredible work,” said Dartigue. “Part of my mission and duty since becoming the public defender is to make sure that the community understands our expertise and that we garner the respect we have earned through the work that we do every day.”
Addressing the disparity in resources is Dartigue’s top priority for 2025. She said the criminal justice system in Maryland cannot be fair until her office receives the proper funding and resources. This includes ensuring the wages her employees receive represent the long hours they log.
Her second priority is ending the automatic charging of children as adults. In Maryland, if a child is 14 or older, they are automatically charged as adults for violent crimes, like first degree murder or attempted murder; first degree rape or attempted rape; and first degree sex offense or attempted sex offense. If a child is 16 or older, they can be charged as adults for abduction, kidnapping, second degree murder or attempted murder, voluntary manslaughter, robbery with a weapon, carjacking, first degree assault and more.
According to Dartigue, this process effectively removes some of the discretion of the juvenile court system. She added that a majority of these cases are dismissed or sent back to a juvenile court to be resolved. This means youth spend unnecessary time in adult facilities without access to resources, treatment or education.
“Our children bear upon their shoulders all of the ills of society, and crime is a direct result of poverty,” said Dartigue. “We have children who are lacking education, living in poor conditions and do not have health care. These are all things that contribute to crime. Yet, we keep throwing around the word ‘accountability’ when we as a society bear a responsibility to create environments where they will thrive, and we have not.”
Dartigue’s third priority is to push for the implementation of a policy that seeks to limit police interaction with the public during traffic stops. According to the Center for American Progress, 600 Black people have been killed during these stops since 2017.
The legislation would make offenses, like driving with expired tags, a broken taillight or window tint, secondary violations, which cannot be the sole reason for officers engaging in a traffic stop. It calls for officers to instead send electronic citations for non-safety related violations.
“It gives police the opportunity to put their attention to solving crimes and addressing issues that actually deal with safety,” said Dartigue. “For the community, it will lessen the number of interactions and, hopefully, increase the number of lives that are saved.”
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