Cris Arguedas - Berkeley, CA
Cris Arguedas is recognized as one of the finest criminal defense lawyers in the United States. In her 20-plus years in private practice, she has represented high-profile clients in some of the most visible cases around the country, as well as many little-known clients on relatively routine matters that never make the nightly news. Singled out for her thorough preparation, shrewd strategizing, and impressive courtroom skills, Arguedas has been named the lawyer other lawyers would hire if they got arrested (California Lawyer), one of the 10 best lawyers in the Bay Area (San Francisco Chronicle, Northern California Super Lawyers), one of the 50 most influential women lawyers in the United States (National Law Journal), one of the 100 top lawyers in California (San Francisco Daily Journal, The Recorder), and one of the five most promising women lawyers in the country (Time). Cris Arguedas’expertise also makes her a highly sought-after lecturer, teacher, and advisor to public officials in both major parties. She has served on advisory committees for San Francisco’s district attorney, Kamala Harris, and for two top federal prosecutors: San Francisco’s current U.S. attorney, Kevin Ryan, and his predecessor, Robert Mueller (now Director of the FBI). At the statewide level, she has been appointed to several commissions on judicial standards by California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George. She has also headed U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer’s Federal Judicial Selection Committee, which recommends nominees for the federal judiciary and for the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California. In 1983, when Cris was 29, Time magazine named her one of the country’s five most promising women lawyers under 35. Since then, she has repeatedly been recognized as one of the nation’s leading criminal defense lawyers by such publications as The Wall Street Journal, the National Law Journal, California Lawyer magazine, San Francisco magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Recorder and Daily Journal legal newspapers, and every edition of Best Lawyers in America published since its inception in 1983. In 2000, she was elected a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers (an honor reserved for just a tiny percentage of lawyers in the nation), and in 1995 she was named to the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. A former president of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, a statewide criminal defense organization, she was named in 2001 as one of a handful of lawyers who other California attorneys would choose to represent them if they found themselves in trouble with the law. Cris Arguedas has taught criminal trial practice at Boalt Hall School of Law and trial advocacy at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. She has served on the boards of the Innocence Project of Northern California and the Western Center on Law and Poverty, among many other organizations.

Michael Burt - San Francisco, CA
Michael N. Burt is a certified criminal specialist in private practice in San Francisco, California and an attorney with the Mexican Capital Case Legal Assistance Program. Prior to entering private practice in January 2003, he was head trial attorney with the San Francisco Public Defender's Office where he practiced for over 24 years. He has specialized in the defense of capital cases for the past 18 years, with an emphasis on forensic science issues. In 1998, he litigated a multi-defendant DNA challenge which resulted in the first successful challenge to STR DNA testing in the country. Although his main focus has been at the trial level, he has also represented capital defendants in post-conviction proceedings and served as a Strickland expert in many state and federal courts. He is the editor-in-chief of the California Death Penalty Defense Manual and he lectures throughout the country on all aspects of capital case defense and forensic science issues.

Alan DuBois - Raleigh, NC
Alan DuBois is the Senior Appellate Attorney for the Federal Public Defender's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina. He graduated from Duke University in 1984 and the University of Virginia School of Law in 1987. In 1989, after two years as a staff law clerk at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, he joined the Federal Public Defender's Office. In 2005, he was the visiting federal defender at the United States Sentencing Commission and also served as a visiting attorney with the Legal Policy Branch of the Office of Defender Services in Washington, D.C. In January of 2010, he argued (or will argue depending on when this is published) the case of United States v. Comstock in the United States Supreme Court.

William Gallagher - Cincinnati, OH
Bill Gallagher is a partner in the firm of Arenstein and Gallagher. His practice is limited to the representation of citizens accused of criminal offenses in both state and federal courts. Mr. Gallagher graduated with honors form Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1987. A former Assistant Public Defender in Lake and Cook Counties, Illinois for eight years, he has been in private practice in Cincinnati since 1994. He is a past president of the Greater Cincinnati Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and is on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He currently is an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati Law School. In August of 2002 he was appointed by the Governor to the Ohio Sentencing Commission. A position he held for 7 years. He sits on the Hamilton County Policy and Structure Committee which addresses issues involved in the criminal justice system of Hamilton County. In August of 2009 he was appointed as a Commissioner on the Hamilton County Public Defender Commission which oversees the operation, budget and policy decisions of the Public Defender Office. Bill Gallagher was instrumental in the establishment of an Innocence Project in Ohio headquarters at the University of Cincinnati Law School. Since 2003 the Ohio Innocence Project has been responsible for the release of 5 Ohio prisoners.

James Griffin - Jackson, MS
James Griffin became hooked on audio recording at age 5 when his father brought home a reel-to-reel tape recorder made in Germany by Grundig, one of the world’s leading electronics firms of the day. He quickly became an expert in operating the device by recording his sisters, his mother, and copying his father’s country music albums. His fascination with electronics continued throughout his teen years; he was working at a radio station when he was 17. By age 20, he had been hired as an engineer by a major recording studio and by 22 he had recorded a multi-platinum selling worldwide hit record. After 17 years in the music business, he left it behind to establish Forensic Tape Services, assisting civil attorneys, criminal defendants, prosecutors, and law enforcement with the analysis, enhancement, and authentication of audio and video evidence. He has been retained in over 2000 cases in every US state and overseas, including USA v Qubilah Shabazz, Nevada v OJ Simpson, Clarence Stewart,et al, the WorldCom investigations, the Birmingham church bombings case, Mississippi v Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, et al, the precedent-setting USA v David Knellinger, and USA v Adrian Armstrong. Griffin has consulted on several occasions with CSI: Miami on issues regarding audio and video recordings. He has recently changed the name of his company to Forensic AVI, reflecting that in the increasingly digital world, tape is rapidly disappearing as a recording medium in favor of the numerous digital audio and video formats.

Ronald Guerette - Charlotte, NC
Ronald Thomas Guerette was a police officer in Arvada Colorado, then Charlotte Police Department, Charlotte, North Carolina. Most of his experience was in undercover work in drugs, organized crime and sting operations. He was lead investigator in over 75 homicide cases, and assisted in over 300 other cases while in homicide. He has thought interview/interrogation techniques including homicide investigations for over eight years at area colleges and at the police academy. Since 1982, he has been a private investigator, and his firm handles at least 10 homicides per year. He has given lectures for the NC Attorney General’s office, and the Canadian Mounties in Toronto on motorcycle gangs. He has testified as an expert in state and federal courts in North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Virginia.

Aaron Hughes - Houston, TX
Aaron Hughes is an active Certified Information Systems Security Professional, a member of Texas Association of Licensed Investigators and a member and a frequent speaker for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. In addition to being a Texas licensed investigator, Mr. Hughes has acted as an expert witness on corporate and white collar crimes, theft of intellectual property, trademark infringement, and corporate misuse cases, and has taught several CLE qualified programs for various legal, investigative and law enforcement agencies.

Prof. Edward Imwinkelried - Davis, CA
Ed Imwinkelried is the Edward L. Barrett, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis. He is the coauthor of GIANNELLI & IMWINKELRIED, SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE (4th ed. 2007) as well as the author of THE NEW WIGMORE: EVIDENTIARY PRIVILEGES (2d ed. 2009), EVIDENTIARY FOUNDATIONS (7th ed. 2008), THE METHODS OF ATTACKING SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE (4th ed. 2004), and UNCHARGED MISCONDUCT EVIDENCE (rev. 2004). He has published more than 100 law review articles. He was a member of the Legal Issues Working Group of the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence and the legal consultant to the Surgeon General's Commission on Urinalysis Testing in the Armed Forces. He is currently serving on the National Institute of Science and Technology's Expert Group on Human Factors in Latent Fingerprint Analysis. He has lectured to groups of attorneys and judges in 46 states.

Al Menaster - Los Angeles, CA
Al Menaster is the Head Deputy in charge of training for the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office. He has worked in that office for 35 years. Mr. Menaster has argued the Fare v. Michael C. case to the United States Supreme Court. He has argued nine cases to the California Supreme Court. From April, 1988, to April, 1989 Mr. Menaster was the training coordinator for the California Public Defender’s Association (CPDA), and put together many seminars on behalf of that organization. In 1987, he was honored by CPDA as the ``Defender of the Year.'' In 2007, he was honored by the Los Angeles County Bar Association as “Defender of the Year.” Since 1987, Al Menaster has been an associate editor of the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice (CACJ) Forum magazine. Since 1998, he has been the managing editor of CPDA’s California Defender Magazine. He is the co-author of Compendium Press's Criminal Trial Notebook, the 3-Strikes Manual, the Proposition 36 Manual and the Motion Manual, as well as its yearly updates. Mr. Menaster is the co-author of two chapters of the Continuing Education of the Bar book California Procedure and Practice.

Prof. Laurence Mueller - Irvine, CA
Larry Mueller is a Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. He received his Ph.D. in 1979 from the University of California, Davis, where he studied under Francisco Ayala. Mueller then went on to do postdoctoral research in theoretical population genetics with Marcus Feldman at Stanford University. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of California, Irvine, Dr. Mueller was an Assistant and Associate Professor at Washington State University. Mueller has published over 70 papers in the fields of evolution, population, genetics and population ecology. He is also the author of Stability in Model Populations with Amitabh Joshi. In his current research, Dr. Mueller applies experimental evolution to study problems like density-dependent natural selection and the evolution of late-life demographic patterns in Drosophila.

Doug Passon - Phoenix, AZ
Doug Passon is an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the District of Arizona. He is a graduate of Washington University School of Law. He has been practicing criminal law, primarily indigent defense, for over thirteen years. He is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker. His most recent film, Letter of Thanks,was chosen as an official selection in several local, national, and international film festivals, and received top honors at two. His next film, "Dr. Sell's War on Drugs", is currently in post-production. That film tells the true story of the Supreme Court's seminal 2005 decision challenging the government's ability to force medicate an incompetent defendant. Mr. Passon co-authored an article on this subject which appeared in the May/June and October 2008 issues of NACDL's "The Champion". For the last several years, Mr. Passon has been combining his passion for filmmaking with his practice of law by producing short documentaries for use as mitigation at sentencing. He also teaches attorneys, paralegals and investigators across the country how to effectively integrate videos into their sentencing practice.

Chris Ritter - Oakland, CA
Chris Ritter joined The Focal Point in 1998 after several years as a partner and trial lawyer at a major San Francisco law firm. His experience trying cases in both state and federal courts gives him the insight and perspective to help clients zero in on key issues and uncover powerful and persuasive visual strategies. As a former faculty member at University of California Hastings College of the Law, where he taught trial practice, evidence, and legal writing, Chris Ritter is a master at clarifying the complex and making esoteric themes understandable and compelling. His courtroom experience is also instrumental in creating strategically sound, clearly delineated, and creatively convincing presentations and storylines designed to win. In addition to his work at The Focal Point, Ritter has taught for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy and remains an active member of the State Bar of California. An accomplished author, he collaborated with The Focal Point’s founder, Andy Spingler, on Packaging and Presenting Your Case to Win, published by the CEB, and wrote Creating Winning Trial Strategies and Graphics, published by the American Bar Association, and lauded as the definitive guide in the field. Chris Ritter has been a featured presenter at programs including those sponsored by the State Bar of California, the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, the Texas State Bar, the National Association of Criminal Defense Counsel, the California Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB), the American Bar Association, and Law Seminars International. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School.

Kristen Gartman Rogers - Mobile, AL
Kristen Gartman Rogers is an Assistant Federal Defender for the Southern District of Alabama Federal Community Defenders Organization. Kristen received her law degree from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1999 and began working for the Federal Defenders Organization the same year. She now heads the office’s appellate division. From December 2002 through May 2003, Kristen was Special Counsel and Visiting Federal Defender at the United States Sentencing Commission in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the Federal Public and Community Defenders’ Sentencing Guidelines Committee and the Federal Public and Community Defenders’ Supreme Court Resource and Assistance Panel.

David Rudolf - Charlotte, NC
After working for the Federal Defender Services Unit in the Eastern District of New York and teaching on the faculty of the University of North Carolina School of Law as an Assistant Professor of Law, Mr. Rudolf opened his private practice in 1982. He has chaired the Grand Jury Committee of the Criminal Justice Section of the ABA, and served on the ABA Criminal Justice Section Council from 1988 to 1991. He has also been on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers for 12 years. Mr. Rudolf served as a vice-president of the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers for three years, and was the Middle District delegate to the North Carolina Federal Bar Advisory Council for three years. He has taught Trial Advocacy at the UNC School of Law and Criminal Litigation at Duke University School of Law. Mr. Rudolf is a Fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. He is listed in the Martindale-Hubbell Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers and, for the past ten years, in the Best Lawyers in America.

Prof. Adina Schwartz - New York, NY
Adina Schwartz received her J.D. from Yale Law School, and before that, she received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from The Rockefeller University and was an assistant professor for seven years in the Department of Philosophy at Yale University. Before coming to John Jay, Professor Schwartz practiced law in a variety of settings, including as a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind,Wharton & Garrison in New York City and as a federal public defender arguing appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Professor Schwartz’s research and teaching interests are in evidence law, law and science, cybersurveillance, jurisprudence, social and legal theory, criminal procedure, and race and criminal justice. Her article, A Systemic Challenge to the Reliability and Admissibility of Firearms and Toolmark Identification, 6 Columbia Science & Technology Law Review 1 (March 28, 2005), has fuelled challenges to the reliability and admissibility of this evidence throughout the country. The challenges have borne fruit in two federal court decisions, United States v. Monteiro, 407 F. Supp. 2d 351 (D.Mass. 2006), and United States v. Green, 405 F. Supp. 2d 104 (D. Mass. 2005), that, for the first time, severely restrict the admissibility of firearms and toolmark identification testimony. Courts have also cited two others of Professor Schwartz’s articles: "Homes as Folding Umbrellas: Two Recent Supreme Court Decisions on 'Knock and Announce'," American Journal of Criminal Law 25: 545-594 (1998), and "A 'Dogma of Empiricism' Revisited: Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and the Need to Resurrect the Philosophical Insight of Frye v. United States," Harvard Journal of Law and Technology 10:149-237 (1997).

Lisa Wayne - Denver, CO
NACDL Vice President Lisa Monet Wayne is an attorney in private practice in both state and federal courts around the country. She handles serious felonies and complex civil litigation including numerous high profile cases. 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, NCDC, NITA, ABA, ATLA and various other 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 Cardoza Law School. She is a CNN legal analyst regarding high profile cases around the country and continues to be an advocate in all venues of the media addressing important issues confronting the criminally accused. In 2005, Wayne was honored with the Robert J. Heeney Award, NACDL’s most prestigious recognition.