Steven T. Wax

Steven T. Wax is a Federal Public Defender. I didn't know there even was such a thing, but there is and Mr. Wax is not just one, but perhaps the preeminent one in the country. There was a story in The Oregonian this morning about him, and it makes some interesting reading. The story mentions the existence of a couple of YouTube videos. I found several. This one is relatively short.



Mr. Wax defended Brandon Mayfield, another Oregonian, when he was accused by the FBI of being in on the Madrid train bombing. That whole debacle came about because someone said his fingerprint matched. Notice it wasn't because his fingerprint matched, it was because someone said it matched, which we eventually found is something entirely different and in this case, wrong.

The other thing that stood out in the story was the murder 18 months ago of another lawyer from the Oregon Federal Public Defender's office: Nancy Bergeson. That case has not been solved, and there are no suspects, though I will bet that the conspiracy theorists could name a few.

Mr. Wax has written a book: Kafka Comes To America. A couple of reviews claim it's a pretty good story. I am afraid it might be too depressing.

Update December 2015. Replaced the Nancy Bergeson link. The old link went to amw.com (America's Most Wanted) and that site is no more. Weird. I would think something like that would be a permanent fixture on the net.