NACDL - National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
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Litigating Fair Cross Section Challenges in Nebraska
“[A]n essential component” of the right to an impartial jury is the “selection of a jury from a representative cross-section of the community.” Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 528 (1975).
The right to a jury that is a fair cross-section of the community is a well-known concept for criminal defense attorneys. However, the legal and practical complexities in bringing such a challenge create substantial barriers to success in pursuing this core constitutional right.
This FREE defender-only training will help equip defense attorneys with how to bring these critical challenges. Taught by leading jury experts, defenders will learn what courts get wrong about fair cross-section challenges, how to properly establish a prima facie challenge, what you should know about your jurisdiction's jury system, and what pitfalls to avoid.
The program is free but you must register for both sessions to attend and receive program materials.
Russell Lovell, Professor, Drake University School of Law
Drake University Law Professor Emeritus Russell Lovell taught constitutional law, employment discrimination and civil rights law, and remedies from 1976-2014, and served ten years as Associate Dean (collaborating with co-honoree Dean David Walker) and directed Drake’s Clinical Programs from 1995-1999. Russ mentored more than eighty Public Service Scholars as founder/director of Drake’s Public Service Scholarship Program. Drake University honored him as its Outstanding Professor for Experiential Learning for his creation of a practice observation experience of an actual Iowa jury trial for the entire 1L class—and Bloomberg Law, in 2023, recognized it as 1 of the 10 most innovative Law School programs. It was during Russ’s clerkship for Federal Appeals Judge Floyd Gibson that he first helped break down racial barriers in an Arkansas school desegregation case.
Thereafter Russ served as Director of Litigation for the Legal Services Organization of Indianapolis, specializing in Federal Court civil right litigation. His prison reform advocacy secured a Federal Court injunction closing a 48-cell “dungeon-like” solitary confinement unit in Indiana’s maximum-security prison and played a major role in the 1972 landmark Supreme Court due process ruling in Morrissey v. Brewer that guaranteed parolees a fair hearing before their paroles could be revoked.
2023 is Russ’s fiftieth year as an NAACP pro bono civil rights lawyer! His proudest accomplishments were his service as lead counsel on not one, but two, NAACP pattern and practice employment discrimination cases that were resolved by comprehensive Consent Decrees that integrated the Indiana State Police Department in the 1970’s and the Des Moines Fire Department in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Russ served as NAACP co-counsel on key remedies stages of the Indianapolis and Kansas City school desegregation cases, including successful advocacy before the Supreme Court in Jenkins v. Missouri in 1989.
Since 2014 Lovell and Walker have filed nine NAACP Amicus Briefs in the Iowa and Nebraska Supreme Courts. Their advocacy has reinvigorated Iowa’s jury trial jurisprudence, expanded jury service eligibility to more than 160,000 former prisoners who had their citizenship rights restored, and resulted in enactment of the Des Moines Unbiased Policing Ordinance. To use the words of former Drake Law Dean Alan Vestal, “the NAACP has repeatedly honored Russ Lovell for his unwavering civil rights commitment at every level of the NAACP”—Local (Des Moines), State (both Indiana and Iowa), 10-state central US Region (50th anniversary of Brown v. Board in Topeka, Kansas), and the Foot Soldier in the Sand Award at the 2005 National Convention. The Notre Dame Alumni Association awarded him the Fr. Louis Putz social justice advocacy award in 2023.
Thomas Riley, Public Defender, Douglas County Public Defender
Thomas Riley earned an undergraduate degree in American Studies from St. Michael's College in Winooski, Vermont, in 1972, and subsequently obtained his law degree from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1975. Commencing a notable legal career, Thomas served as an Assistant Public Defender in Douglas County from 1975 to 1983. Rising through the ranks, Thomas held the position of Chief Deputy Public Defender in Douglas County, Nebraska, from 1983 to 1997 and since 1997, has served as the Public Defender for Douglas County, Nebraska.
David Walker, Professor Emeritus of Law,Drake University School of Law
David S. Walker is the retired, Dwight D. Opperman Distinguished Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Drake Law School, where he twice served as Dean of the Law School, from 1987-1996 and again from 2003-2008. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Iowa and also the Executive Committee of the NAACP Des Moines Branch. With his colleague Russell E. Lovell, II, Walker is Co-Chair of the Legal Redress Committee for the Des Moines Branch as well as the State NAACP in Iowa.
He has worked with Professor Lovell and NAACP State Conference President Betty Andrews on many initiatives, including anti-racial and ethnic profiling bills introduced in the Legislature; on Unbiased Policing Ordinances adopted by the cities of Des Moines, Coralville, and Iowa City; on fair chance for employment (“Ban the Box”) bills; on jury selection and management legislation; and on the Governor’s Executive Order Number 7 restoring the right to vote for persons previously convicted of a felony. Recently they have worked successfully to secure changes by the Secretary of State to the Secretary of State website necessary and helpful in light of Executive Order Number 7.
On behalf of the NAACP Walker has co-authored with Mr. Lovell seven Amicus Curiae Briefs addressing issues in cases before the Iowa Supreme Court. The issues in these cases have included a challenge to the constitutionality of pretextual traffic stops (written in conjunction with counsel for the ACLU of Iowa), the constitutional right to an Impartial Jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community served by the trial court, the authority of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission (which a private corporation claimed had been ousted by an employee’s arbitration agreement), and the validity of “Ban the Box” ordinances passed at the local level.
Walker is also the Chair of the Iowa State Bar Association’s Corporate Laws Committee and has been since 2010. Since 1992 he has been appointed by successive Iowa Governors to be one of Iowa’s three Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, and he has served as Chair of the Iowa Commission since the year 2000. On its behalf, he has sought introduction of and appeared before Iowa House and Senate Subcommittees on more than thirty Uniform Acts, or amendments to them, that Iowa has enacted into law.
