Fidel Cassino-DuCloux, a 16-year assistant federal public defender in Oregon, took over the top job this month.
Cassino-DuCloux was selected by 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges to replace Lisa Hay, who retired June 30 after 25 years working in the Federal Public Defender’s Office.
“We are grateful to Lisa Hay for her outstanding service and are confident Fidel Cassino-DuCloux’s extensive experience, commitment to indigent defense and ability to inspire, teach and mentor others will ensure that the Oregon federal public defender office continues to provide exceptional representation to its clients,” 9th Circuit Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw said in a statement. Wardlaw chairs the court’s standing committee on federal public defenders.
Cassino-DuCloux, 54, joined the Oregon office in 2007 after working as a public defender on juvenile and felony cases in New Orleans and then continuing to do public defense work for juveniles in Savannah, Georgia, after evacuating from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
He now oversees 20 lawyers and 83 staff members based in Portland, Eugene and Medford. Among some of its recent high-profile cases were litigation challenging conditions in the federal prison in Sheridan during the COVID-19 pandemic and petitions to release Oregonians held in custody without lawyers due to the ongoing public defense crisis in the state.
Cassino-DuCloux, who was born in Alabama, credited his father, a retired U.S. Army veteran, and his mother, a social worker, with instilling in him a penchant for public service. He graduated from Tuskegee University in Alabama and Loyola University College of Law in New Orleans.
“I always felt this deep desire to help the underdog,”he said.
After law school, he found a job at the Capitol Assistance Center in New Orleans, providing legal representation to people facing the death penalty. He helped represent people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and largely worked with defendants who were held at Mississippi State Penitentiary, known as Parchman Farm, a maximum-security prison farm.
After receiving a Ford Foundation fellowship, he helped New Orleans residents with criminal and civil legal matters as they transitioned into mixed-income housing through the federally funded Hope VI urban redevelopment program.
Since he joined Oregon’s Federal Public Defender’s Office in 2007, he said he’s worked to tell his clients’ stories beyond what’s presented on paper.
“To read an indictment on its face, on the four corners of the document, really doesn’t give the whole story of the client,” he said. “One of my favorite parts of the job is to tell their story to the court and the government so that we can come to the right resolution, based on everything that has happened in their life.”
He became a supervisor of eight attorneys in the office in 2020.
Cassino-DuCloux has served on the board of Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare and the Federal Bar Association and co-organized the Haggerty Scholars Program, which provides mentors and scholarships to high school students, and Behind the Robe Project, which introduces high school students to the courthouse and public defenders, prosecutors and judges.
He said he worked in the community with Oregon U.S. Attorney Natalie Wight when she became one of the first mentors in the Haggerty Scholars Program as an assistant U.S. attorney. He said he looks forward to building a “collaborative relationship” with her now in his new job.
“Fidel is a longtime colleague and friend, and I look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role. He is dedicated to public service and will maintain the Federal Defenders’ high standards for professionalism and advocacy,” Wight said in a statement.
Cassino-DuCloux called the federal defender’s staff “smart, dogged, empathetic and creative” in their representation “of the most marginalized in our society.”
Cassino-DuCloux is a father of three and grandfather to five with a sixth on the way. When he’s not working, he enjoys snowboarding, sailing and biking.
“I am energized by this opportunity,” he said. “I am excited to continue our mission of providing holistic and zealous client-centered advocacy, while supporting our incredible staff as they tackle the challenges to come.’’
— Maxine Bernstein
Email mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212
Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
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