By The Numbers

Scott "holding court" with the Ugandan Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Norbert Mao, while they were visiting the L.A. County Superior Court last month.

2022 has been a busy year in Uganda. Even though Scott has (at this point) only a very small team of Ugandan advocates and social workers, the work is intense and growing every month. For those of you not up to speed with the work, Scott’s team works with Ugandan’s charged with crimes and stuck in prison to either (i) resolve their cases by agreement/plea bargain or (ii) defend prisoners up to and through trial.

This year about 53% of the inmates Scott’s team works with are immediately released from prison once the team begins to serve them. Most have never met with a lawyer let alone had their cases reviewed by competent counsel. Many are immediately released because they have already served an appropriate sentence, often beyond. Others are released because as soon as defense counsel looks at their file, it is immediately apparent that the evidence is weak.

Scott and his colleagues at Pepperdine recently hosted several senior leaders from the Ugandan Judiciary in Malibu, CA. Those four days were an opportunity not only to discuss the work presently being done but also to plan for the years ahead. The group visited a Los Angeles County Superior Court to observe plea bargaining and how it works in the US. They also spent most of a day with two representatives from the L.A. County Public Defender’s Office to explore best practices in public defense as they developed an even bigger vision for expansion of public defense in Uganda.

Even though Scott and I are in the US for a few weeks and he is leading his team remotely, work continues in Uganda. In fact, when the judicial leaders arrived back in Uganda from Malibu, they planned their first misdemeanor Prison Project with Pepperdine as a partner and participant instead of the leader. This is an opportunity for Scott’s team to measure progress as well as see how quickly the project can scale across the country with Pepperdine providing training and guidance and Ugandans managing work on the ground. The goal, of course, is for Pepperdine to work itself out of a job.

Th numbers below are an overview of the year to date (through October.) Things are indeed going in the right direction. “Sensitized” is a fancy Ugandan (or British) term for meetings with inmates to inform them that they have options to resolve their case short of going to trail – plea bargaining. “Dismissed/Withdrawn” are cases where Scott’s team secured complete dismissal of a matter based on a lack of evidence.

	2021	2022 (To Date)	Change
Sensitized	3,812	8,830	+131%
Clients Served	1,048	1,197	+14%
Cases Resolved	525	807	+54%
Immediate Release	180 (34%)	434 (53%)	+141%
Dismissed/Withdrawn	43	52	+21%

Please join us in cheering on our Uganda team and celebrating the freedom of so many Ugandans this year.