Mississippi’s new Day One public defender pilot is showing early proof of concept: when lawyers get into rural jails on day one, people go home sooner and cases move faster. Defend the Fifth is doing that work with ZLS.app as their case management backbone from the moment they opened their doors.

“This pilot is working the way we were hoping.”

Three months into Mississippi’s Day One public defender pilot, lawmakers are hearing something that is rare in criminal justice reform: it’s working the way it was supposed to. In a recent report to the legislature, State Public Defender André de Gruy noted that the new Day One office in the Fifth Circuit Court District has “hit the ground running,” delivering early representation in some of the most rural counties in the state.

In that short window, Defend the Fifth has represented 44 clients facing 58 felony charges and 30 associated misdemeanors, conducted nearly 40 intake interviews within 24 hours of arrest, and argued over 30 bail motions for 28 clients. Twenty people charged with non‑violent felonies have already been granted pretrial release, eight cases have been resolved favorably at or before preliminary hearing, and prosecutors have dropped all charges against three clients.

State legislators are taking notice. As Senate Judiciary Committee A Chair Sen. Brice Wiggins put it, “This pilot is working the way we were hoping,” capturing the sense that early defense, done right, can change case trajectories instead of simply documenting them. For a state that has long struggled with people sitting in jail for weeks or months without a lawyer, seeing faster movement, more releases, and stronger advocacy in rural counties is a meaningful shift.

Optimizing Early Representation: The Role of Public Defender Case Management Software in First Appearance Appointment

For decades, the “gap” in Mississippi’s justice system has been the period between arrest and the first meeting with an attorney—a gap that can last weeks. The Day One pilot closes this window by ensuring counsel is appointed at the first appearance. However, achieving this in a rural circuit requires more than just lawyers; it requires technical coordination.

By leveraging public defender case management software, Defend the Fifth enables its team to organize, streamline, and collaborate using best-in-class tools. This digital infrastructure eliminates the administrative friction and ensures defense teams can focus on high-impact advocacy and secure a release within 24 hours rather than languishing in jail waiting for an attorney to be appointed.

Building Day One from the ground up

The Day One pilot did not start with a blank slate. Before the legislature appropriated $838,000 for the program, Mississippi’s State Public Defender and partners at the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center were already mapping out a structure: dedicated attorneys, support staff, and a focus on the seven‑county Fifth Circuit Court District. The idea was to layer new state‑funded defenders and infrastructure on top of the fragmented local system, not to replace it overnight.

That design has translated into a lean but focused team. The pilot currently supports three attorneys and three support staff, including an investigator, with recruitment underway for a fourth attorney to expand capacity. The office concentrates its efforts in counties like Winston, Montgomery, Attala, and Grenada—places where historically, distance, low population, and thin legal markets have made it especially hard to guarantee counsel at first appearance.

Crucially, local sheriffs and jail staff are looped into the process. Law enforcement notifies the Day One team when someone is arrested, enabling the office to get lawyers to the jail quickly, meet clients before that first appearance, and start building the case for release and services immediately. In practice, that means fewer people falling through the cracks between the jail and the courtroom, and more opportunities to stabilize work, family, and treatment before a case hardens into long-term detention.

What early representation looks like in real cases

The statistics tell one story, but the early case examples show what “Day One” really means in human terms. In one case, a man was arrested on a felony drug possession charge; within a day, a Day One lawyer began work, contacted his employer to preserve his job, and connected him with outpatient addiction recovery services. The case ultimately resolved as a non‑adjudicated misdemeanor, with the client remaining in treatment rather than sitting in jail or facing a felony conviction.

Across the docket, Day One defenders are meeting most clients in the jail on the first day, not weeks or months into the case. They are filing and arguing bail motions early, contesting preliminary hearings, and pushing for dismissals or favorable resolutions at the front end of the process, rather than waiting for crowded calendars to catch up.

How Defend the Fifth is using ZLS.app

From day one of Day One, Defend the Fifth built its new office around a modern case management system instead of spreadsheets, Word docs, and manila folders. Defend the Fifth launched their office with ZLS.app as their case management system from scratch, and Director Richard Carter III described the impact this way:

“We are so happy we stumbled across this solution. ZLS keeps us organized and really simplifies our process and cuts out the unnecessary. But beyond the software, the support in this project has been phenomenal—they are working daily with our staff to make it work best for us.”

On the ground, that means new staff can come into a unified system on their first day and immediately see who is in custody, what hearings are coming up, and what follow‑up is due. Instead of chasing status updates across email chains, the Day One team can spend that time in the jail or in court advocating for release.

Why infrastructure matters for rural defense

The early returns from Mississippi highlight a broader lesson: defender infrastructure is a reform decision, not a back‑office detail. When a state invests in statewide support, dedicated staff, and tools that let rural defenders “hit the ground running,” it becomes far more realistic to guarantee counsel on day one.

Mississippi’s pilot is demonstrating that early appointment plus real infrastructure can reduce jail time and generate better case outcomes in just a few months. For other states with rural courts, the Day One project offers a concrete template: invest in people, invest in structure, and give new offices the tools they need to focus on what matters most.

Sources