Devin Franklin

A native of Decatur, Ga., W. Devin Franklin is Movement Policy Counsel at the Southern Center for Human Rights. He joined SCHR in March 2022 after working as a Senior Assistant Public Defender at the Office of the Circuit Public Defender-Atlanta Judicial Circuit for over 12 years, zealously advocating on the behalf of nearly 1500 indigent, accused persons charged with felony offenses. Devin is a graduate of Gideon’s Promise trial advocacy training program for Public Defenders and currently serves as a faculty member for the organization’s Core 101 programming. Additionally, he is a recipient of the 2020 Gideon’s Promise Foot Soldier Award, an honor given in recognition of service to make equal justice a reality.

Devin has served on the faculty of the Georgia Public Defender Council’s Advance Practice Workshop during its existence and will join the faculty of the Bill Daniel’s Trial Advocacy Program in Fall 2022.  He has also served as Co-Chair and curator for the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ 2022 Winter Training, “Death to the Criminal Punishment Bureaucracy: The Evolution of Criminal Justice and the Revolution of Values in a Carceral Society”.

He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Hampton University (Hampton, Va) in Sports Management and a Juris Doctor from Mercer Law School (Macon, Ga).