Transformed Public Defender

Written by Muriel Larson

During the first week after his commitment to Christ, the public defender of the county in which I live received thrilling proof of the power of God to help him live differently.

“Pete” Partee clashed with a judge. Instead of responding in anger, as he normally would have done, he sent up a quick prayer to the Lord.

“The Lord gave me the power to respond in a Christian way,” he says. “In fact, after my commitment to Christ, a dramatic turnabout occurred in what I was doing. My attitude toward my work, my priorities, everything changed!”

One big thing that changed was Pete’s attitude toward his financially-poor, sometimes reprehensible clients. This happened when his office represented a girl who was convicted of beating and robbing elderly people. As this young woman walked out of the courtroom after her conviction, the public defender saw her with new eyes.

“Suddenly it struck me that Jesus Christ had died on the cross even for this girl who had done such cruel acts,” Pete says. “And although she owed the state fifty years, I knew that if she turned to Jesus Christ, He would forgive even her sins even as He had mine. It came as a great revelation to me.”

Pete’s new approach

When talking to his clients now, Pete tells them:

“God cares for you. He loves you so much He sent His son to die for your sins on the cross. And God is in the business of redeeming old junk and rusty old things and turning them into bright, new shining things. He will do that for you, if you receive Christ and turn your life over to Him.”

Pete has received some thrilling letters from clients in prison. Sammy, a young black man in prison for the second time for stealing, wrote:

“I remembered what you said, and realized I couldn’t do things by myself. I needed help. I needed the Lord. So I have turned my life over to Christ.”

While in prison the first time, Sammy had developed his latent skill as an artist. He began to feel some self worth because of the popularity he attained as a result of his paintings. When he had completed his first term in prison, Sammy had come out with great expectations for his future. But nothing had materialized for him. Through frustration he had gone back to his old way of obtaining things.

“As I defended Sammy on the second charge of stealing, I was able to talk with him quite a bit,” Pete says. “We discussed the fact that even though he had great talent, he couldn’t make it by himself. He needed Jesus Christ in his life. Although we lost the court battle because Sammy was proven guilty of the charge, we won the war when Sammy committed his life to Christ.”

Pete finds his calling

“We have represented up to 2,000 people a year charged with criminal offenses, from juvenile court all the way up to the court where murders, rapes and other such crimes are tried,” Pete says. “We get the people who are not financially able to hire a private attorney. I believe the Lord has called me to this position; it is a ministry.”

The public defender has found it a ministry not only in dealing with his clients, but also in working with their families. In a number of cases, the parents are good Christian people, and Pete is able to comfort and encourage them to keep looking to the Lord for their strength.

This was true in the case of a 23-year-old white mentally-handicapped man accused of murder.

“During this young man’s trial we prayed right in the courtroom together – his parents, his minister, my assistant, the defendant, and I – that we would be given strength and wisdom by the Lord to do our best for the defendant, and that the Lord’s will would be done,” the public defender says. “The whole trial was conducted in a Christian atmosphere.”

A couple Pete represented on drug charges became Christians while out on bail. Charges against the wife were subsequently dismissed and those against the husband reduced. After the husband served his term, the couple enrolled in a Christian school and they are now in the full-time service of the Lord. When Pete later had to represent the couple’s son in court, he comforted and prayed with them.

How Pete’s new life begann

The new life in Christ’s service started for Pete Partee when a lay witness group called Faith Alive came to his church. He was just a nominal church member at that time.

“I committed my life to Christ when I was eight,” he told a lay witness from Tallahassee. “But for a long time now God hasn’t even seemed real to me.”

“Well, Pete,” responded the woman, “why don’t you say, ‘God, if You are real, then I want You to come into my life.’”

Pete thought about that and decided to do it. Right after that he felt compelled to tell others of his renewed commitment to Christ. The good news quickly reached a dedicated Christian neighbor of his, who invited Pete and his wife to the weekly Bible study held at his home. Pete found he had a new hunger for God’s Word and he began to grow quickly in the Lord.

Ten months later the Partees started such a group in their own home. “We did this for more than three years,” Pete says, “and during that time the Lord sent in more than sixty persons for us to minister to.”

Within a year after his recommitment to Christ, Pete himself became a lay witness with Faith Alive. “Since then,” he says, “I have spent many weekends giving testimony for Christ in numerous denominational churches in several states. It’s a great way to reach nominal church members who are like I was.”

“The Lord doesn’t give us a task without equipping us for that task,” Pete Partee declares. “I believe that if I’m sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, the Lord will show me what He wants me to do and give me the power to do.”

On the wall of Pete’s office is a framed saying that expresses the way he feels about his calling as public defender:

“May you always be able to feel that Christ is standing in the courtroom with you and with the convicted and the acquitted. There is no place and no heart too dark for Him, the convicted and the condemned.”