March 2014
The March 2014 issue of The Champion discusses how to defend a case when a juvenile client confesses, provides "best practice" tips for Miller re-sentencings, and offers instruction on how to interview a child client.
Articles in this Issue
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Book Review: Called to Justice: The Life of a Federal Trial Judge
“One of the most well-respected judges in the country,” “a pillar of integrity,” and “the best federal judge we have had in anyone’s memory” is the way Judge Warren K. Urbom has been described by lawyers appearing before him. He has presided over the Wounded Knee trials, the Progressive Farmers Association trial, trials involving U.S. senators, professional athletes, and Barney (yes, the six foot purple dinosaur). Judge Urbom lets us in on the life of this federal trial judge: balancing life and career while attempting to dispense justice to all parties appearing before him.
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Book Review: The Hanging Judge
“One of the most well-respected judges in the country,” “a pillar of integrity,” and “the best federal judge we have had in anyone’s memory” is the way Judge Warren K. Urbom has been described by lawyers appearing before him. He has presided over the Wounded Knee trials, the Progressive Farmers Association trial, trials involving U.S. senators, professional athletes, and Barney (yes, the six foot purple dinosaur). Judge Urbom lets us in on the life of this federal trial judge: balancing life and career while attempting to dispense justice to all parties appearing before him.
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Defending Juvenile Confessions After J.D.B. v. North Carolina
The landmark trilogy of juvenile sentencing decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court1 has led to calls for systematic changes to many other aspects of the juvenile justice system. Whether it is challenging other draconian sentences as applied to juveniles,2 abolishing transfer or waiver to adult criminal court,3 or myriad other creative ideas, the possibilities are seemingly endless.
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Federal Sentencing Reform Advances Despite a Brazen Prosecutorial Embrace of the Trial Penalty (Insi
NACDL and advocacy groups are no longer alone in decrying draconian sentencing policies. With leadership coming from the top of the Justice Department and bipartisan support emerging in Congress, there is real hope that the United States may finally begin to undo the plague of mass incarceration.
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From the President: A Call to End Bulk Records Collection
The time has come for the government to provide full disclosure of the complete nature and extent of its secret serveillance programs and the secret law that forms the basis for the programs.
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History Corrected — The Scottsboro Boys Are Officially Innocent
Who were the Scottsboro Boys?
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Interviewing a Child Client
In many respects, interviewing a child client shares many of the same characteristics as the interview of an adult client.
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NACDL News: Defense Bar Applauds Reauthorization of Congressional Task Force on Overcriminalization
On February 5, the House Judiciary Committee adopted a resolution reauthorizing the bipartisan Overcriminalization Task Force for an additional six months, through August 5, 2014.
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NACDL News: Illegal NSA Program to End ‘As It Currently Exists’
President Obama made an historic speech on January 17 on the review of signals intelligence and the future of the bulk telephone metadata collection program.
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NACDL News: NACDL Presses Support for the Right to Counsel at First Appearance
On January 17, NACDL and the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice filed a brief as Amici Curiae in the case of Farrow v. Lipetzky, which is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
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NACDL News: NACDL Sponsors Supreme Court Group Admissions Ceremony
NACDL News: NACDL Sponsors Supreme Court Group Admissions Ceremony Ivan J. Dominguez NACDL News March 2014 10 January 13, 2014 — NACDL members traveled to Washington, D.C., and were sworn in to the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. NACDL Immediate Past President Steven D. Benjamin mad
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NACDL News: NYU Journal Looks at Racial And Ethnic Disparities in the Criminal Justice System
The NYU Journal of Legislation and Public Policy released a special issue in January, in collaboration with NACDL, featuring a series of articles examining the critical issue of racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system. This issue culminates more than a year of focused NACDL action aimed at addressing racial and ethnic disparities.
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NACDL News: Supreme Court Reverses Sentencing Enhancement in Drug Case
A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court issued an important criminal law ruling on January 27 in the case of Burrage v. United States by applying the rule of lenity — a rule of statutory construction that resolves ambiguities in the language of a law in favor of the defendant. Reversing the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Court held that to apply the 20-year minimum sentencing enhancement in § 841(b)(1)(C) to someone convicted of selling certain substances to a user who then dies, “at least where use of the drug distributed by the defendant is not an independently sufficient cause of the victim’s death or serious bodily injury[,]” the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that “but for” the use of that particular substance, the user of the drug would be alive.
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NACDL News: Task Force on Restoration Of Rights and Status After Conviction Seeks Stories
For nearly three years, NACDL’s Task Force on Restoration of Rights and Status After Conviction has examined how legal mechanisms for relief from the collateral consequences of conviction are actually working in state and federal systems.
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New Partners and New Opportunities in The Defense of Children Facing Life Without Parole
In June 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Miller v. Alabama that the practice of sentencing children to mandatory life without parole violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. In doing so, it also provided attorneys representing people facing life without parole for crimes that occurred when they were under 18 with new opportunities and obligations to present a universe of mitigating evidence that would counsel in favor of imposing some other lesser sentence.
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Resentencing Juveniles Convicted of Homicide Post-Miller
The social and behavioral sciences — and now the U.S. Supreme Court — have recognized that “kids are different.” Traditional scientific research demonstrates that adolescence is a transitional period of life in which cognitive abilities, emotions, judgment, impulse control, and identity are all still developing. Teenagers by their very nature are less mature and less able to assess risk, make good decisions, and control anger.1
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Skilled Advocates Fighting for Children
Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions change the way youth are tried and sentenced. NACDL has formed partnerships with juvenile defense organizations to develop training materials and webinars that offer tips for best practices.
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The Martoma Verdict And the Perils of Insider Trading Cases (White Collar Crime)
On Feb. 6, 2014, former SAC Capital Advisors LP manager Mathew Martoma became the 79th individual convicted of insider trading in cases brought by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office. After less than three days of deliberation, a jury of seven women and five men convicted Martoma on all three counts of insider trading.1 Despite the herculean efforts of a defense team led by Richard Strassberg of Goodwin Proctor, Martoma faces up to 20 years in prison at a sentencing hearing scheduled for June.
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Youth Matters: Roper, Graham, J.D.B., Miller, and the New Juvenile Jurisprudence
The last decade has given rise to an unprecedented series of decisions that relies upon common sense, science, and social science to require that youth be considered differently than adults in criminal procedure and sentencing matters. In Roper v. Simmons,1 Graham v. Florida,2 J.D.B. v. North Carolina,3 and Miller v. Alabama,4 the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a series of decisions that calls for transformational change in the way that children are treated in criminal procedure and sentencing matters.