Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald once sang about their failure to agree on anything, including how to pronounce the names of certain foods. He said “potato,” she said, “potahto,” and they nearly called the whole thing off.
Comparing prosecutors and public defenders to a couple squabbling over the pronunciation of a word is an oversimplification of the practice of law, but that’s essentially where Anna Marona and Addie Nester spent the first few years of their association. As a public defender, Marona would say, “Potato,” and across the aisle in Hamilton County Criminal Court, Nester, a prosecutor, would say “Potahto.”
Granted, their respective roles in the criminal justice system called for Marona and Nester to see things differently. And as they debated the facts of a criminal charge, the former was obligated to advocate for her client, while the latter would stand on behalf of the residents of Hamilton County.
The conflicting nature of their jobs ushered the attorneys into frequent disagreements, says Nester, 29.
“Sometimes Anna or her client wanted something I was OK with, but most of the time, she or her client wanted something I was not OK with.”
That said, both attorneys attempted to remain civil and open-minded when they butted law school-educated heads.
“Anna would say, ‘I’m looking at this case from a different perspective, so hear me out and let me know what you think,’ or, ‘My client is begging me to tell you this,’” Nester continues. “As a prosecutor, the least I could do was listen.”
Meanwhile, Marona appreciated Nester’s willingness to lend her an ear and consider her arguments, she says, so she always tried to bring something substantive to the table.
“I never threw things out there to see what would work,” says Marona, 32. “Instead, I always tried to come up with a good reason for asking for something.”
Over time, Marona’s thoughtful approach to litigation earned Nester’s respect, and the pair developed a second language that was exclusively theirs.
“I knew Anna would look at a case, evaluate it and say, ‘I feel like it’s important for you to consider this,’” Nester remembers. “You lose credibility with opposing counsel when you throw things at them without putting any thought behind what you’re doing.”
Marona and Nester’s obligations to their clients were not solely responsible for their mental scraps. Rather, the interests and passions of each attorney brought them to their respective corners of the legal boxing ring.
The Florida born-and-bred Marona was completing a journalism minor at Lee University when she took a media law class and decided to explore the legal field. Before applying for law school, she worked as a runner and then as a paralegal at Davis & Hoss, a criminal defense firm in Chattanooga.
While working for Janie Parks Varnell and the other attorneys at Davis & Hoss, Marona’s interest in criminal defense ignited into a full-blown passion that carried her to Belmont University College of Law in Nashville. Her internships and other work while there included stints with the Office of the Post-Conviction Defender, which handles death penalty cases, and the Metro Nashville Public Defender’s Office.
“The law clicked for me as I experienced the criminal defense side of things,” Marona recalls. “I liked the human aspect of it. Not that Addie did this, but I met a lot of prosecutors who said, ‘They did something bad, so they deserve what they get.’ I liked being able to talk to someone on a human level and treat them as a person instead of simply someone with criminal charges.”
This was even true of her conversations with death row inmates, Marona says.
“I felt that sitting with my clients and humanizing them in a way the system doesn’t made me a better advocate.”
Nester became interested in the law earlier in life than Marona – too early, given what sparked her curiosity, the Memphis native admits.
“My mom and I watched ‘Criminal Minds’ when I was growing up. The subject matter fascinated me, so I majored in psychology in undergrad.”
“Criminal Minds” was originally a CBS procedural in which members of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit used profiling to find suspects. In the real world, Nester connected with the idea of helping people within a just but flawed system while earning her Juris Doctor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
“Our justice system has a lot of issues, but despite those things, prosecutors are able to help people. They have the ability to say, ‘You have to go to rehab,’ instead of, ‘You have to go to jail.’ That appealed to me.”
Despite ending up on opposite sides of the courtroom, their desire to bring their humanity to the practice of law carried both attorneys through law school and to the criminal justice system.
Eventually, Marona and Nester bonded, partly because there were very few young female attorneys in the local criminal bar at the time, they agree, but also because they discovered they shared certain personal interests.
“We’d find ourselves chatting about clothes, skincare and all of that stupid stuff,” laughs Nester.
So, when the two attorneys learned in late 2023 that they’d be working together as law clerks for Criminal Appeals Judge Tom Greenholtz, they were pleased.
Here again, Marona and Nester stand on common ground.
“I became a clerk to make myself a better prosecutor,” says Nester. “I’m a prosecutor at heart, but it’s important for me to be able to see things from a different perspective.”
Marona nods and says she, too, became a clerk because she wanted to become better at what she does.
“Even though it’s nontraditional to practice for a few years and then do a clerkship, it made sense for me because I knew I’d be able to learn more a lot quicker. Public defenders spend a lot of time doing the same things, whether it’s drug cases, gun cases or property offenses, so they’re not always learning something new. I spent about 20% of my time at the public defender’s office learning new things; I now spend about 80% of my time doing that.”
Nester found the same to be true, she says.
“Prosecutors aren’t able to dive deep into things. But here, I have enough time to gain a better understanding of what something might look like on appeal, for example, or how I should handle a certain situation during a trial in order to not have a conviction overturned. Having the time and the ability to focus on our cases has helped both of us.”
The breathing room Marona and Nester are enjoying has not lessened the frequency of their disagreements, however. As they discuss the cases on which they’re working and offer their thoughts to Greenholtz, they’re often at odds with one another.
“We still disagree 80% of the time,” Marona smiles. “I think that was part of what [Judge Greenholtz] liked about hiring clerks with different backgrounds. I think he likes having the perspective of both a public defender and a prosecutor.”
“We both view things realistically, though,” Nester adds. “When I look at a case, I think, ‘The prosecutor was probably thinking this,’ ‘This is probably why the prosecutor did this,’ and, ‘Doing this would have horrible implications.’ Since I don’t have any experience as a public defender, I’m not going to know what Anna knows.”
There is one thing Marona and Nester agree on: when their time as clerks is done, they want to be back in a courtroom.
Much like Spotify and YouTube allow Armstrong and Fitzgerald to continue to argue over whether it’s “potato” or “potahto,” Marona and Nester’s return to litigation could mark a new chapter in their professional (but amicable) feud. Given their zeal for their respective sides of the aisle, don’t expect them to call the whole thing off.