About Us
Christina Kleiser, Host
Christina Kleiser has been an Assistant Public Defender with the Knox County Public Defender’s Community Law Office in Knoxville, Tennessee since March 2006 and currently supervises the youth defense team. Chris is a graduate of DePaul University College of Law and worked for a number of public interest organizations in Florida and Ohio, specializing in child advocacy, criminal and immigrant defense, before joining the Community Law Office in Knoxville.
Chris presents nationwide on issues related to youth defense and immigration consequences for non-citizens caught up in the delinquency and criminal justice systems, and she is a certified faculty member of NJDC’s Juvenile Training Immersion Program. She currently serves as co-chair of the Central Regional Defender Center.
Chris is tired of policy makers working from their gut and wants us to instead look at research, data and science in making policy that affects youth. She hopes to continue to push herself and others to be better defenders on behalf of youth in the courtroom and beyond.
Cashauna Lattimore, Host
Cashauna Lattimore is an Assistant Public Defender in Jefferson County, Tennessee. Cashauna is a native of East Tennessee, born and raised in Knoxville.
She attended Austin East High School and then went on to graduate summa cum laude in 2008 from Spelman College, a historically black college for women, in Atlanta, Georgia. She immediately enrolled at the University of Tennessee, College of Law where she found her passion for criminal defense, participating in the Wrongful Convictions and Innocence Clinic. She graduated in 2011 and was licensed to practice law the same year. Cashauna spent the first five years on her practice specializing in criminal defense and child welfare. In August 2016, she began her journey with the State of Tennessee as Assistant General Counsel for the Department of Children’s Services in Blount County. After just shy of three years, she became an Assistant Public Defender with the Fourth Judicial District Public Defender.
She is the mother of one son, Kaise Dwayne Young, who is three years old and the absolute joy of her life. She is a member of Abundant Life Church in Knoxville, where the Evangelist Tabace Burns is the local pastor, overseer is Bishop Edward R. Kirkpatrick.
Kristen Anderson, Host
Kristen Anderson is an Assistant Public Defender for the Knox County Public Defender’s Community Law Office in their Youth Defense Unit since 2021, and is a member of the Gideon’s Promise Class of 2022.
Kristen is a graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law and the former Director of UT Pro Bono, where she coordinated dozens of students, local attorneys, and nonprofits to provide legal services to the Knoxville community. During law school, Kristen worked as a law clerk for the ACLU of Tennessee and then as a limited-license public defender under the supervision of her co-host, Christina Kleiser, with the Knox County Public Defender’s Community Law Office. She soon developed a passion for youth defense and combating the education issues faced by many of her clients. Kristen has conducted significant research examining sentencing laws affecting youth and last year she published Set Up to Fail: Issues in Education and Reentry for Tennessee’s Court-Involved Youth in the Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice.
Kristen recognizes that there is an urgent need for education law specialists and youth advocates in the South. She aims to learn, alongside her fellow defenders and listeners, more about the collateral consequences that children face as they navigate the juvenile justice systems.
Chris Smith, Producer
With more than 20 years experience in public media & television production, Chris has written, edited, shot & produced programming for sports, news magazines, commercials & documentaries; PBS, FOX, ESPN, CBS, NBC and HGTV. In addition to producing In Defense of Children, Chris is the producer of renowned podcast Black in Appalachia.