As part of FIU Law’s celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, FIU Law will welcome Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida, on Thursday, October 8 from 12:30 – 2 p.m. in the large courtroom.
Mr. Martinez will discuss leadership and establishing and maintaining a career in public service.
Public Defender Martinez’s biography is below:
Carlos J. Martinez, a native of Cuba, has dedicated his professional life to public service, using his legal talents in service of the poor.
Arriving to Miami from Cuba on a 1969 Freedom Flight, he learned the meaning of hard work and determination at an early age. Since he was 10 years old until he began working at Exxon gas stations, Carlos often helped his dad, Celedonio, after school. Carlos would mop floors and clean the Little Havana church where his father worked as a maintenance man and where his mother, Yara, was the church’s receptionist.
Carlos credits his parents and his religious upbringing for his passion for social justice and for helping the poor. “I am living my American dream. I am doing something I love. I am fortunate to work in an office with highly dedicated individuals where we can be proud of what we do every day –helping people who are less fortunate and whose freedom and future well-being is in jeopardy. By serving as the Public Defender, I’m honoring my mother and father’s values and the sacrifices they made for us to live and prosper in a free country.”
At 16, Carlos was hired as a car wash attendant at an Exxon station. Within three years, Carlos was simultaneously managing six gas stations in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. He worked full-time to pay for his undergraduate college education. He attended Miami-Dade College, the University of Texas-Austin and graduated from Florida International University with a B.A. in Political Science in 1985. In 1990, Carlos received his J.D. from the University of Miami. He represented indigent clients at the trial and appellate level in Miami Dade, Florida and Bellingham, Washington. Prior to becoming the Public Defender, Carlos was a top administrator in the Public Defender’s office for 12 years and he led litigation efforts, designed and implemented management and legal reforms, and drafted legislation and grant proposals.
He was elected public defender without opposition in 2008, and re-elected in 2012. Carlos is the first Cuban-American Public Defender and the only elected Hispanic Public Defender in the U.S. As Public Defender, Carlos manages an office of approximately 400 employees, handling approximately 85,000 cases each year.
Carlos has often stated that “fighting for individual rights and equal justice, for the downtrodden, the despised, the voiceless and the invisible, has not just given me great professional satisfaction, it has given meaning to my life.”
Carlos created numerous volunteer initiatives such as the “Redemption Project” (helping ex-felons regain their civil and employment rights), “Play It Smart” (teaching young people how to interact with law enforcement), “Consequences Aren’t Minor” (educating adolescents and adults about the direct and collateral consequences of illegal behavior and arrest), the Equal Justice Roundtable (a faith community collaboration to address social injustice and improve public safety), a statewide public defender management training program, and Juvenile Justice CPR (Charting a Path to Redemption), a legal reform initiative designed to help troubled kids achieve the American dream. Carlos led the statewide effort to ban the indiscriminate shackling of detained children in juvenile courts. He has worked tirelessly to address the crisis of minority children being cycled from the school house to the jail house, and to protect the confidentiality of juvenile records.
Carlos has a long list of outstanding honors and achievements. In 2009, Carlos received the FIU Distinguished Alumni Torch Award for the College of Law and was inducted into the Miami-Dade College Alumni Hall of Fame. In 2006, the Florida Public Defender Association (FPDA) awarded Carlos the Association’s prestigious Craig Stewart Barnard Award for Outstanding Service. Carlos also served two years as Vice President of the FPDA. Carlos is a member of Iron Arrow, the highest honor bestowed by the University of Miami.
He currently serves as government lawyer liaison to The Florida Bar Board of Governors and is a member to the University of Miami School of Law National Advisory Council.
Carlos chaired the Representation Subcommittee of The Florida Bar’s Commission on the Legal Needs of Children, and later served as Chair of the Bar’s Legal Needs of Children Committee. He has also served on the Supreme Court of Florida Steering Committee on Drug Courts and the Steering Committee on Families and Children, the National Institute of Corrections’ National Advisory Committee on Evidence Based Decision Making for Local Criminal Justice Systems, the Florida Blueprint Commission on Juvenile Justice and the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Zero Tolerance Task Force.
Carlos has served on technical assistance and training teams across the United States and Latin America, including the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD – Dominican Republic, Chile and Mexico), the Honduran National Office of Public Defense, and the Public Defender Offices in Schenectady County (NY), San Bernardino County (CA), Maricopa County (Phoenix, AZ), and Marion County (Indianapolis, IN). He recently authored a chapter, Helping Adolescents Succeed: Assuring a Meaningful Right to Counsel, for the book “A New Juvenile Justice System Total Reform for a Broken System,” New York University Press, Edited by Nancy E. Dowd (2015) and a law review article, You Are The Last Lawyer They Will Ever See Before Exile: Padilla V. Kentucky And One Indigent Defender Office’s Account Of Creating A Systematic Approach To Providing Immigration Advice In Times Of Tight Budgets And High Caseloads, Fordham Urban Law Journal (2011).