Washington, DC ­ (Aug. 15, 2012) – Solano County, Calif., attorney Jeffrey E. Thoma was re-elected to the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) at the Association’s 54th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Calif., on July 28. He has served on NACDL’s Board of Directors since 2009. For the past five years, Thoma has served as CLE Program Chair for NACDL’s Forensic Science & the Law Seminar. He has also served as co-chair of NACDL’s Death Penalty Committee.

A criminal defense attorney in private practice, Thoma previously held the post of Public Defender for Solano County, Calif., where he directed a staff of 53 attorneys and 86 employees in an office with an annual workload of over 29,000 new cases.  Before that, Thoma served as the Public Defender for Mendocino County, Calif., and as a member of that county’s Drug Court Management Team.

Thoma has counseled drug court programs nationwide and has been a guest speaker at the Annual National Drug Court Conference. In addition, for several years, Thoma has served on the faculty of the National Comprehensive Drug Court Defense Counsel Training Program. 

Thoma has appeared before the United States, California, and Nevada Supreme Courts; and has specialized in capital litigation and DNA cases for over the past twenty years. From 1996-2001, he served as a commissioner on the United States Department of Justice’s Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence, and has lectured and been published on this subject and others nationwide. He is also a faculty member at the Death Penalty College at Santa Clara University School of Law, and for the State of Hawaii Annual Public Defender Conference. 

Thoma is a 1976 political science graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Ill., and a 1981 graduate of the University of San Diego School of Law.

Contacts

Ivan Dominguez, NACDL Senior Director of Public Affairs and Communications, (202) 465-7662 or idominguez@nacdl.org

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is the preeminent organization advancing the mission of the criminal defense bar to ensure justice and due process for persons accused of crime or wrongdoing. A professional bar association founded in 1958, NACDL's many thousands of direct members in 28 countries – and 90 state, provincial and local affiliate organizations totaling up to 40,000 attorneys – include private criminal defense lawyers, public defenders, military defense counsel, law professors and judges committed to preserving fairness and promoting a rational and humane criminal justice system.