Jonathan Harwell is an Assistant Public Defender in Tennessee.  He has handled cases in the appellate courts of Massachusetts and Tennessee, including arguing over ten times in the highest courts of those states.  He has also handled numerous appeals in the federal Courts of Appeals.  Although primarily an appellate attorney, he has also tried many cases to a jury, in severity ranging from shoplifting to white-collar fraud to double murder.  His most significant recent appellate victory came in State v. Booker, 656 S.W.3d 49 (2022), where the Tennessee Supreme Court invalidated on Eighth Amendment grounds a sentencing regime which automatically sentenced juveniles convicted of murder to fifty-one years in prison prior to any chance of release.  As a result of that decision, over one hundred individuals are now parole-eligible after twenty-five years instead of likely dying in prison.