Jeffrey E. Thoma is a criminal defense attorney at both the trial and appellate levels, and is a Visiting Lecturer of Law, and has served as Professor of Evidence at the University of Hawaii School of Law. He has appeared before the United States, California, and Nevada Supreme Courts; and has specialized in capital litigation for over forty years, and DNA cases for over thirty five years, and had served for over ten years as a member of the planning committee member and faculty of the Capital Case Defense Seminar in Monterey, CA.  He served as a commissioner under Attorney General Janet Reno on the United States Department of Justice’s Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence from 1996-2001, and has lectured and been published on this subject and others nationwide.

He formerly served two terms on the Board of Directors, and has been Chair of the Annual Forensics Program of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) the first 13 years of its existence .He is past President of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice (CACJ), and had been Seminars Chair for CACJ the prior sixteen years, honored with the CACJ Presidents Award three times, as well as CACJ’s Life Achievement Award. He is also a faculty member at the Boulder, CO Capital Voir Dire program, for the National Drug Court Institute (NDCI) and at the Hawaii State Public Defender Annual Conference (2004-present).  He was formerly the Chief Public Defender for Solano County (CA) from 2004-2010, the Chief Public Defender for Mendocino County (CA) from 1997-2004, and also formerly worked as a Deputy Public Defender for San Diego (CA), Orange (CA), and Clark (NV) counties, and as a Deputy District Attorney in Humboldt County(CA).