Denver Attorney Lisa Monet Wayne Installed As NACDL President
Lisa Monet Wayne was sworn in as President of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) at the Association’s 53rd Annual Meeting in Denver, Colo., on Aug. 6.
Wayne, an attorney in private practice in Denver and Boulder, Colo., has her own law firm and is Of Counsel at Gerash & Steiner, P.C. She practices at both the federal and state levels around the country, representing the accused in matters involving white collar crimes, violent crimes, and a wide range of serious criminal allegations against both individuals and corporations. Previously, Wayne was a Colorado State Public Defender for 13 years where she served as office head, training director, and senior trial attorney. She lectures nationally with NACDL, National Criminal Defense College, National Institute of Trial Advocacy, American Bar Association, and other legal organizations.
Wayne is currently an adjunct law professor at the University of Colorado where she teaches trial advocacy, and she serves on faculty at the Trial Practice Institute at Harvard Law School, the National Criminal Defense College, and Cardozo Law School. She is a member of the Colorado Supreme Court Standing Committee on the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct and is a legal analyst regarding high profile cases around the country. In 2005, NACDL honored her with the Robert J. Heeney Award, NACDL’s most prestigious recognition.
Among Wayne’s goals for her year as President are pretrial detention and discovery reforms. “One of the greatest injustices in America’s criminal justice system is the injustice that rears its head within hours of an arrest,” she said in her inaugural remarks. “The American system of pretrial justice is a national embarrassment. The money-based bail system imprisons hundreds of thousands of presumptively innocent people every year. Many are held on minor charges and will spend more time in jail before their cases are adjudicated than they will even if they are found guilty.”
Moreover, Wayne explained, “Studies prove the system systematically coerces guilty pleas, even from the innocent, and that racial disparity is prevalent.”
In federal and state courts, evidence favorable to the accused is routinely withheld by prosecutors in violation of defendants’ due process rights. Wayne said that discovery reform will be a prime objective for NACDL in the coming year. “It’s time to take the gamesmanship out of the criminal justice system.”
Wayne also spoke about her swearing in from a personal perspective. “Who can say what really ignites the spark that propels a person on a particular career path? All I know is that I came out of childhood with a gritty determination to be a criminal defense lawyer. I was infused with that insatiable desire to stand with the accused, to stand down injustice, and to stand up for the dignity of every person.” Wayne is the first African American woman to serve as President of NACDL.
Gallagher Receives NACDL’s Top Honor
Cincinnati, Ohio, attorney William R. Gallagher was awarded the 31st annual Robert C. Heeney Memorial Award, NACDL’s most prestigious honor, on Aug. 6 at its 53rd Annual Meeting in Denver, Colo. The award is given to the one criminal defense lawyer who best exemplifies the goals and values of the Association and the legal profession.
Formerly a public defender with the Cook County Public Defender’s Office, William Gallagher is currently a partner at the criminal defense firm Arenstein & Gallagher. He previously served as the President of the Greater Cincinnati Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and on the Board of Directors of the Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, as well as on the NACDL Board of Directors. He currently serves as Chair of NACDL’s CLE Institute, which oversees the Association’s expansive CLE programs.
NACDL Immediate Past President Jim E. Lavine presented Gallagher with the Heeney Award. “Under Bill’s leadership as Chair of NACDL’s CLE Institute, the quality and quantity of NACDL’s educational programs increased tremendously,” Lavine said.
An active proponent of sentencing reform, Gallagher serves on the Hamilton County Policy and Structure Committee, which addresses issues involved in the criminal justice system of Hamilton County, and on the Board of Directors of Ohioans to Stop Executions. A founding member of the Ohio Innocence Project, he is also the federal Criminal Justice Act Panel Representative for the Southern District of Ohio and a commissioner on the Hamilton County Public Defender Commission. In 2002, he was appointed by the Governor to the Ohio Sentencing Commission, where he served for seven years. Gallagher teaches as an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati Law School. He has also taught at DePaul Law School as an adjunct professor.
DiLauro Receives NACDL’s Inaugural Champion of State Criminal Justice Reform Award
Michael DiLauro, Assistant Public Defender and Director of Training and Legislative Liaison, Office of the Public Defender (OPD), Providence, R.I., was awarded NACDL’s first Champion of State Criminal Justice Reform Award on Aug. 5 at NACDL’s 53rd Annual Meeting in Denver, Colo. This award honors individuals or groups whose exceptional efforts have led to progressive reform of a state criminal justice system.
In 1980, DiLauro joined the OPD in Rhode Island. He worked in the trial division until 2001, when he was promoted to Legislative Liaison. As part of his duties, DiLauro is responsible for drafting and advocating key legislative proposals on behalf of the OPD. He also submits position papers and written or oral testimony concerning various criminal justice-related legislation.
Michael Iacopino, Chair of NACDL’s State Legislative Affairs Committee, presented the award to DiLauro’s for his tenacious advocacy throughout his career on numerous criminal justice proposals, especially those addressing the two leading causes of wrongful convictions in the United States – mistaken eyewitness identification and false confessions. For example, in 2010, DiLauro succeeded in introducing and passing an eyewitness reform bill at the Rhode Island Statehouse. Even after its passage, he continued to work indefatigably with the state’s Identification Task Force to issue a report that is now a model for similar reforms in other states. In 2009 and 2010, DiLauro lobbied the state legislature to pass legislation requiring the mandatory recording of custodial interrogations in their entirely when the maximum penalty is life imprisonment. Unfortunately, the legislation was later vetoed by the state’s governor. Nonetheless, DiLauro did not give up the fight. In 2011, DiLauro was able to secure passage of legislation extending the life of the eyewitness identification task force created by the General Assembly in 2010 as well as passing similar legislation establishing a stakeholder task force to promulgate written policies in the area of the electronic recording of custodial interrogations.
DiLauro’s fellow state criminal justice reform advocates extolled him for his zealous effort to work with various groups to enact smart criminal justice policies in Rhode Island. NACDL’s State Legislative Affairs Director, Angelyn Frazer, said of DiLauro, “Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, ‘The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.’ Michael has truly exemplified this throughout his career. For this reason and more, he deserves the honor bestowed upon him by his peers as the Champion of State Criminal Justice Reform Award recipient.”
NACDL’s President Jim E. Lavine called DiLauro “a most deserving choice for the inaugural award.”
Officers and Newly Elected Board of Directors Members Sworn In at Annual Meeting
NACDL swore in its new Officers and Directors at its Annual Board and Membership Meeting in Denver, Colo., on Aug. 6, 2011. Ohio attorney William R. Gallagher, Chair of NACDL’s Continuing Legal Education Institute, received the 31st annual Robert C. Heeney Memorial Award. NACDL awarded Michael DiLauro, Director of Training and Legislative Liaison, Office of the Public Defender, Providence, R.I., its inaugural Champion of State Criminal Justice Reform Award. The Association presented the Champion of Justice Award to Deryl Dantzler, Dean of the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Ga.
The newly elected Board members are William H. Buckman (Moorestown, N.J.), Paul B. DeWolfe (Baltimore, Md.), Elissa Heinrichs (Doylestown, Pa.), Michael P. Heiskell (Ft. Worth, Texas), Tracy A. Miner (Boston, Mass.), Tyrone C. Moncriffe (Houston, Texas), Melinda M. Sarafa (New York, N.Y.), David B. Smith (Alexandria, Va.), and Geneva Vanderhorst (Washington, D.C.).
NACDL’s Executive Committee is comprised of President Lisa M. Wayne (Denver, Colo.), President-Elect Steven D. Benjamin (Richmond, Va.), First Vice President Jerry J. Cox (Mount Vernon, Ky.), Second Vice President Theodore Simon (Philadelphia, Pa.), Treasurer E.G. Morris (Austin, Texas), Secretary Barry J. Pollack (Washington, D.C.), Board member Jay Clark (Cincinnati, Ohio) and Board member William P. Wolf (Chicago, Ill.).
President Lisa M. Wayne appointed Rick Jones (New York, N.Y.) to serve as NACDL’s Parliamentarian.
Stetson University and NACDL Launch White Collar Criminal Defense College
Stetson University College of Law and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) are launching the NACDL White Collar Criminal Defense College, the first program of its kind. The first session of this groundbreaking training for criminal defense lawyers is slated for early 2012. Stetson will serve as the host institution. Practitioners in the field of white collar criminal defense will gain key advocacy skills and learn substantive white collar law during this multi-day “boot camp” program.
Topics will likely include corporate investigations; representation of top management, middle management and other employees; grand jury investigation as it relates to corporate documents; the handling of parallel proceedings, such as agency investigations with the SEC or IRS; and sentencing issues unique to white collar defendants.
“The marriage of the leading advocacy law school in the country with the nation’s leading criminal defense organization is a unique way to ensure that attorneys have the opportunity to enhance their white collar advocacy skills and also increase their knowledge of substantive white collar law,” said Ellen S. Podgor, the Gary R. Trombley Family White Collar Crime Research Professor at Stetson Law, who will chair the White Collar Criminal Defense College.
“This partnership with Stetson is a natural extension of NACDL’s educational programs for attorneys from all practice settings who are looking for top-notch legal training from the nation’s preeminent criminal defense lawyers,” explained NACDL Executive Director Norman L. Reimer.
Among the nation’s top white collar practitioners serving on the advisory board of the NACDL White Collar Criminal Defense College at Stetson are NACDL’s CLE Institute Chair William R. Gallagher of Arenstein & Gallagher; Shana-Tara Regon, Director of White Collar Crime Policy for NACDL; and Larry Thompson, former U.S. Deputy Attorney General and Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, General Counsel and Secretary for PepsiCo. Other members of the advisory board and those teaching in the program will be announced soon.
For more information about the White Collar Criminal Defense College, contact Professor Ellen Podgor at epodgor@law.stetson.edu or 727-562-7348.
NACDL Testifies in Congress Against the ‘Clean Up Government Act’
Timothy P. O’Toole, a member of NACDL’s Board of Directors, testified on July 26 before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on H.R. 2572, the Clean Up Government Act of 2011.
“Cleaning up government — what could be wrong with that?” O’Toole asked. But there are already more than 20 federal statutes currently being effectively used by federal prosecutors to curtail public corruption and fraud. With over 4,450 federal crimes on the books, and possibly tens of thousands of federal criminal regulations, “it is difficult to believe that existing federal, state, and local criminal laws do not already reach all conduct that is properly criminal,” O’Toole observed. This legislation, however well-intended, will only further muddy the federal criminal code, creating confusion, costs to taxpayers, and needless harm to innocent public officials and institutions. “Before Congress passes a new law,” O’Toole said, “it should ask whether the law is necessary.”
The bill would increase the maximum prison term for certain offenses. For example, Section 4 increases the maximum term for theft or bribery concerning receipt of federal funds, from 10 to 20 years. What could be wrong with that? The answer is that there is simply no evidence the current 10-year sentence fails to adequately punish and deter bribery, theft, or embezzlement of federal money or property.
Another provision would expand the illegal gratuities portion of the federal bribery statute to prohibit giving anything to an official “for or because of … the person’s official position.” What could be wrong with that? Simply put, it would prohibit any gift no matter how small given to an official in recognition of his office. It would be a crime for a sports team to recognize the President with a team jersey. It would be a crime for a group of farmers to treat the Secretary of Agriculture to a lunch made from local products. In short, the proposed amendment would criminalize any gift given at any time to any public official in any situation that recognizes the public official as being a public official. Americans do not need to worry that sending a small gift to their congressman or postal carrier could send them and their postal carrier to prison.
The U.S. Supreme Court has circumscribed federal corruption laws in an attempt to separate harmless conduct from criminal influence. Before rushing to enact feel-good criminal legislation, Congress also needs to recognize the danger of ensnaring innocent citizens and officials with vague or overbroad criminal statutes.
A copy of the testimony is available on NACDL’s website.
Report Analyzes Florida’s Broken Misdemeanor Court System
NACDL studied misdemeanor courts and procedures in 21 Florida counties and released its results and recommendations to the public on July 21, 2011. The report, entitled Three-Minute Justice: Haste and Waste in Florida’s Misdemeanor Courts, is available on NACDL’s website. Read more about the report on page 7 in this issue of The Champion.
Federal Judge Rules Florida’s Drug Law Unconstitutional
A federal judge in Orlando declared Florida’s strict liability controlled substances act unconstitutional on the ground that the law could convict an innocent person of drug distribution who unknowingly possessed, transported, or delivered a controlled substance. The law’s fatal flaw is the lack of a criminal intent requirement, which the legislature purposely removed from statutes in 2002. Links to Judge Scriven’s opinion as well as to NACDL’s amicus brief are available on NACDL’s website. NACDL Executive Director Norman L. Reimer discusses the judge’s opinion on page 8 in this issue of The Champion.