NASHVILLE, June 14, 2021 — The Tennessee Bar Association this week will honor Hamblen County Assistant Public Defender Willie Santana with its Claudia Jack Award for his work promoting criminal justice reform. The award will be presented June 18 during the Tennessee Bar Association’s annual convention in Memphis.

After joining the public defender’s office, Santana grew concerned with the overcrowding in the county’s jail and began looking at state bail laws and pretrial detention as contributors to this problem. He also authored "Cash on the Barrelhead" in the July/August 2020 issue of the Tennessee Bar Journal, which brought additional awareness to the issue. His work eventually led to coverage of the crisis in the New York Times and Knoxville News Sentinel, and eventually a federal district court decision that found the county’s bail practices illegal on three constitutional grounds.

“This case and the attendant publicity have sent ripples throughout the criminal justice community in Tennessee,” former TBA President Buck Lewis wrote in his nomination of Santana. “Judges are beginning to focus upon whether their practices are legal and whether the system of cash bail, even legally imposed, makes sense for the taxpayers, the courts, and the accused.”

The award is named after the late Claudia Jack, a long-time champion of the poor and underprivileged, and is presented annually to an outstanding a public defender or court-appointed private practitioner who has served the legal community and their clients in an exemplary fashion. The award was first presented in 2020, to Federal Public Defender of the Middle District of Tennessee Henry Martin. 

The Tennessee Bar Association was founded in 1881. Its membership represents the entire spectrum of the legal profession in Tennessee and beyond. The TBA is open to all licensed attorneys in good standing, and it is dedicated to enhancing fellowship and professionalism among the members of Tennessee’s legal community.