First Light is honored to welcome Emily Galvin Almanza to Austin to celebrate her debut book, The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender's Search for Justice in America.

The event will begin with an author reception from 6:00-6:30 p.m., followed by a seated conversation (6:30 p.m.) and signing. Tickets include a copy of the book and a reserved seat. Unreserved seats are available on a first come, first served basis. Free RSVPs are also encouraged.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A former public defender takes us behind the closed doors of America’s criminal courts, revealing how the institutions that claim to protect us are doing the exact opposite—and offering a blueprint for finally fixing it.

As Americans, we are told a rose-tinted story about our criminal courts—that these are the hallowed halls of justice, that the purpose of our legal process is to find the truth, and that those who enforce the law are both

equitable and heroic. But what if the reality is purposefully obscured to hide something rotten at the system’s core?

In The Price of Mercy, attorney and former public defender Emily Galvin Almanza weaves hard data and unforgettable stories, dark humor and compelling evidence to tell us the truth about what’s really going on

behind the closed doors of America’s criminal courts. She shows us how jails actually increase future crime, the dirty tricks police use to make millions in overtime pay, how a man could spend decades in prison because scientists mistook dog hair for his own, the perverse incentives that push prosecutors to seek convictions even when they themselves don’t want to, and how judges may decide cases differently after lunch.

We’ll learn what’s working, too: how public defenders can improve public health and even economic mobility, and how planting more trees can reduce a neighborhood’s murder rates. But a lone defender winning a case won’t change the system. Galvin Almanza argues that we need an engaged public to confront the stark reality of our crime-generating, poverty-entrenching, health-destroying legal apparatus and rebuild

it into something that can save our collective present and prevent our future from being torn apart.

Provocative and eye-opening, The Price of Mercy lifts the curtain on the way our laws really operate and presents a path forward for true transformation of the American criminal court system. Justice is not some static thing. It is something enacted together, decision by decision, in acts of inhumanity or mercy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emily Galvin Almanza is the co-founder and executive director of Partners for Justice, a nonprofit creating a new collaborative model designed to empower public defenders nationwide. Prior to founding PFJ, Emily fought for clients inside the LA County Public Defender, Santa Clara County Public Defender, and Bronx Defenders, and with the Stanford Three Strikes Project.

Emily clerked for the Honorable Thelton Henderson of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and is a graduate of

Harvard University and Stanford Law School, where she earned the Deborah Rhode Prize for her work in the public interest. In 2017, she was named one of the American Bar Association’s Top 40 Young Lawyers.

Galvin-Almanza’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Teen Vogue, and TIME.

She is joined in conversation by Robin Bruce, co-owner of First Light and President of the Dovetail Impact Foundation, where she partners with visionary entrepreneurs tackling some of the world’s most urgent challenges. Under her leadership, the foundation has expanded its global reach, with approximately 80% of its $50 million in annual grants supporting anti-poverty initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. In 2010, Robin received the Texas Business Hall of Fame’s award for entrepreneurial achievement. Prior to her role at Dovetail, Robin served as CEO of the Acton School of Business for four years, where she led a hands-on MBA program dedicated to training principled, high-impact entrepreneurs.

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