The Office of the Public Advocate contains the agency’s central leadership. In addition to guiding the direction of all agency action, the Public Advocate’s office manages legal compliance, policy structure, and legislative advocacy.
Damon Preston | Public Advocate
Damon Preston is a career public defender and leads DPA as Kentucky’s Public Advocate. After graduating from Transylvania University and Harvard Law School, Damon began his legal career in the Criminal Appeals Bureau of the Legal Aid Society in New York City. He returned to Kentucky in 1997 and has been with DPA ever since. First a staff attorney in the Richmond trial office, Damon led the Paducah and then Cynthiana offices as Directing Attorney. Starting in 2004, he managed DPA’s Appeals Branch before joining DPA’s Leadership Team as Trial Division Director in 2007. Early in 2011, he was appointed Deputy Public Advocate and remained in that position until his appointment as Public Advocate in 2017. In addition to work through DPA, Damon serves on the board of the Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and is the past chair of the Criminal Law Section of the Kentucky Bar Association. He lives in Georgetown with his wife Amy and daughters Abbie and Marissa.
Melanie Lowe | Deputy Public Advocate
Melanie Lowe grew up in Catlettsburg, Kentucky. The daughter, granddaughter, and niece of steelworkers; she was the first of her family to graduate from college upon receiving her Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice and English from Marshall University. She went on to graduate from the University of Kentucky, College of Law in May of 2000. Shortly after, she began her career as a public defender in the Elizabethtown Trial Office. During her 17 years as a public defender, she proudly represented clients for the Elizabethtown Trial Office, the Kentucky Innocence Project, Adult Post-Conviction, the LaGrange Trial Office and the Shelbyville Trial Office. Melanie was the 2016 Gideon Award Recipient. She resides in Henry County.
Samuel Cox| General Counsel
Samuel Cox is DPA’s General Counsel. He became the Trial Division Director in 2019, after returning to serve as DPA’s Director of Law Operations in 2017. Prior to that, he had a successful practice as a private criminal defense attorney and expert mitigation consultant in the field of death penalty criminal defense litigation, investigation and mitigation. Earlier, Sam was a 12-year employee of DPA as a staff attorney in Bell, Madison and Fayette Counties, before joining the Capital Trial Branch, where he performed with a high degree of skill and experience on DPA’s most complex work. He educated public defenders on highly complex issues such as litigation of intellectual disability in death penalty cases. You can reach Sam Cox by email or phone at 502-782-3553.
Cheyla Bush | Assistant General Counsel
Cheyla Bush earned her law degree from the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law and graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Louisville. Cheyla began her legal career in 2014 as a summer intern with the Department of Public Advocacy (DPA), before joining the LaGrange Trial Office full-time in 2015. In 2017, she transferred to the newly established Shelbyville Trial Office, and in 2019, she moved to the Frankfort Trial Office, continuing her impactful work in defending clients. Her exemplary service and commitment to public defense earned her the prestigious 2020 Defender Uprising Award. In 2021, Cheyla was appointed Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Office of the Public Advocate, where she continues to spearhead initiatives focused on fostering an inclusive and equitable workplace. She has played an integral role in training new attorneys and interns and is an active participant in DPA’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion workgroup. Additionally, she represents DPA at university and college job fairs, contributing to recruitment and retention efforts. Cheyla also holds certificates from the University of South Florida and Cornell University, further enhancing her professional expertise. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to advancing the mission of public defense and promoting diversity and inclusion within the legal field.
Cara Lane Cape | Executive Staff Advisor
Cara Lane Cape is the Executive Staff Advisor at the Department of Public Advocacy (DPA). Ms. Cape received both a BSW and a Master of Social Work from Campbellsville University. Ms. Cape began her career at Protection and Permanency in Grayson County, where she was chief investigator. In 2010, Ms. Cape began working at DPA, where she held an administrative position in the Bowling Green Trial Office while completing her graduate degree. In 2011, Ms. Cape transferred to DPA’s Main Office in Frankfort, where she held positions in the Appeals Branch and Post-Trial Division Director’s Office, until finally ending up in the Office of Public Advocate in 2013 as a policy analyst. While working in the Office of Public Advocate, Ms. Cape was an instrumental part of the JustWare Case Management Team. Through this role, Ms. Cape was directly involved in the implementation, customizing, and maintaining of DPA’s case management system – JustWare, as well as provided training to all employees statewide. Ms. Cape assisted in streamlining data points within JustWare to be used in the Kentucky DPA Outcome Study through the Center for Drug and Alcohol Research (CDAR) at the University of Kentucky, in addition to providing ongoing data validation for the study. In 2015, Ms. Cape became the first Alternative Sentencing Program Supervisor in the newly established Defender Services Branch of DPA’s Law Operations Division. While in this role, Ms. Cape along with Robert Walker, MSW, LCSW of the CDAR published the SFY 2015 Evaluation Report on DPA’s Alternative Sentencing Worker Program.
Kenny Dial | Public Advocate Special Investigator
Kenny Dial was born in Frankfort and raised in Lawrenceburg, Ky. He has award winning experience with the US Marines and as a first responder at Bluegrass Army Depot. He earned a bachelor’s in justice and public safety administration with Sullivan University in 2016. Kenny began criminal defense investigations as an intern with the DPA in 2015 at the Frankfort Trial Office. He joined the LaGrange Trial Office as a public advocate investigator in February 2019. In 4 and a half years, he has worked on over 200 cases including capital, post-conviction, juveniles, and parole revocations. Currently, he is the Office of the Public Advocate’s Special Investigator.