2018 NYCDS CLE Title: Anatomy of Wrongful Convictions Date: Friday March 23, 2018 @ Fordham University Address: 150 West 62 nd Street, New York, New York 10023 Registration: 12:30pm to 1:00pm Program: 1:00pm to 5:00pm/Total of 4 CLE CREDITS Reception Immediately Following on the 2nd Floor FIRST PANEL: 1:00pm to 1:50pm 1.0 CLE Credits Title: False Confessions: How Interrogators Confuse the Innocent Karen Funk Supervising Attorney, NYCDS Karen started her legal career at the Legal Aid Society, Criminal Defense Division in New York County. She then worked as the Principle Court Attorney for the Honorable Charles H. Solomon. In 1991 she, along with Lori Cohen, founded the law firm of Cohen & Funk P.C. After 24 years in private practice doing criminal, family and matrimonial cases, she came to NYCDS in 2015 where she is now a supervising attorney. Dr. Maria Hartwig Professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice Maria Hartwig completed her graduate training in her native Sweden, where she conducted empirical research on social perception and judgment in legal settings. In 2006, she joined the faculty of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where she is now Professor of Psychology. She has published research on the psychology of deception and its detection, and on interview and interrogation techniques using a broad sample of lay people, legal professionals and prison inmates. She has also carried out extensive training of a variety of legal professionals, including prosecutors, judges, police detectives and intelligence and military officers. In 2008, she received an Early Career Award by the European Association for Psychology and Law, and in 2012, she received the Saleem Shah Award for Early Career Excellence in Psychology and Law, awarded by the American Psychology-Law Society and the American Academy of Forensic Psychology. Toni Messina Criminal Defense Attorney, Lecturer & Writer Toni Messina practiced criminal defense law (both state and federal) since 1990. She started at the Legal Aid Society, then went into solo practice in 2004. She s tried over 100 cases including the federal terrorist case of the man accused of plotting to bomb JFK airport as well as cases involving sex trafficking, murder, narcotics conspiracies, gang assaults and Medicaid fraud. She s cross-examined experts in DNA, ballistics, cause of death, identification, Miranda rights and drug addiction.
Toni broadened her practice in 2006 to include the defense of immigrants facing deportation proceedings. She s litigated before the Board of Immigration Appeals as well as the Federal district courts throughout the country. She writes a weekly column about criminal matters for Abovethelaw.com. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Toni worked as a journalist in Rome, Italy for CBS News and NPR. Glenn Garber Founder and Director of the Exoneration Initiative Glenn has been a criminal defense attorney in New York City for nearly 30 years and runs a law firm called Glenn A. Garber, P.C. His lifelong commitment to representing the indigent started after graduating from Cardozo School of Law in 1989, when he began his career as a public defender at the Legal Aid Society, Manhattan Criminal Defense Division. In the early 1990s, he built a private practice with a strong emphasis on state and federal criminal trials and appeals, post-conviction litigation, and civil rights. All the while, Glenn remained dedicated to serving the poor, doing substantial pro bono work and representing indigent New York State and federal criminal defendants. In 2002, Glenn was introduced to innocence work when he won exoneration for Hector Gonzalez who had been wrongfully convicted of a 1996 Brooklyn murder. Recognizing the despair and destruction caused by a wrongful conviction and the importance of reclaiming the lives of so many other desperate innocent prisoners (especially those whose cases lack DNA evidence), Glenn committed himself to helping this forgotten population in their fight for freedom. In 2009, Glenn founded and became the director of the Exoneration Initiative a not-for profit, non-dna innocence organization that represents indigent, wrongfully convicted New York State prisoners. Glenn is also an adjunct professor of law at Brooklyn Law School where he teaches the BLS/EXI Innocence Clinic and a seminar on wrongful convictions. SECOND PANEL: 2:00pm to 2:50pm 1.0 CLE Credits Title: DNA Evidence: Diluting the Gold Standard Brad Maurer Attorney & DNA & Forensics Unit, NYCDS Brad is a trial attorney representing indigent defendants in criminal cases in Manhattan. Brad also serves as the DNA Specialist, which consists of advising attorneys regarding DNA issues, participating in and conducting trainings related to DNA, and participating in advocacy efforts pertaining to DNA policy on behalf of our client community. Before law school, Brad received a B.S. in Neuroscience from Lafayette College and an M.A. in Science Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Jenny Cheung DNA Unit Attorney, Legal Aid Society Jenny Cheung is a staff attorney in the DNA Unit of The Legal Aid Society of New York City. Before joining the DNA Unit in 2016, she was a staff attorney in the Criminal Defense Division of the Legal
Society in Brooklyn for nine years. She earned a dual Bachelors (BA/BS) degree from Columbia University in industrial engineering, psychology, and economics. She also received her J.D. from New York Law School, where she received the Order of the Barristers award for oral advocacy and brief writing in several appellate moot court competitions. Chris Flood Attorney, Federal Defenders of New York Christopher Flood is an assistant federal defender with the Federal Defenders of New York and adjunct professor of law at New York University Law School. In 2010, he returned to the Southern District of New York after helping to organize and lead the Orleans Public Defenders, the institutional public defender office for the City of New Orleans that was created in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Chris began his career at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia and was a founding member of that office s Forensic Practice Group specializing in cases involving forensic science issues regarding DNA, eyewitness identification, arson, sexual assault and forensic pathology evidence. Chris received his B.A and M.S. from the University of Massachusetts and his J.D. from NYU Law School in 2000. A frequent speaker on issues related to defending people charged with crimes who are unable to afford counsel, Chris devotes substantial time to training lawyers and law students around the country as a Core Faculty member of Gideon s Promise, with the Defender Academy of the Bronx Defenders, at the Louisiana Public Defender Board s Defender Training Institute, and Harvard Law School s Trial Advocacy Workshop, among other programs. Chris recently helped organize and teach a weeklong program in American criminal trial practice for over forty lawyers from mainland China at NYU Law School, and presented at a five-day symposium on the rights of the accused in terrorism cases in Niamey, Niger in January, 2015. THIRD PANEL: 3:00pm to 3:50pm 1.0 CLE Credits Title: Ballistics and Fingerprint Evidence: The Unscientific Method Jessica Horani Attorney, Special Litigation Unit & Juvenile Defense Unit, NYCDS Jessica Horani is a Staff Attorney at New York County Defender Services and works in both the Special Litigation and Juvenile Offender units. Prior to joining NYCDS in 2016, Jessica was in private practice as a member of the Felony Assigned Counsel Panel in Manhattan and began her career in criminal defense as an Assistant Public Defender in Miami-Dade County in 2001. A graduate of Cardozo School of Law, Jessica currently serves as a Vice-President on the Board of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and is Co-Chair of the New York Women s Bar Association s Criminal Law Committee. A naturalized citizen of Arab and German origin, she is dedicated to upholding the ideals of America s constitutional rights for every client and using the law to fight for their humanity. Daniel Ades Staff Attorney, Legal Aid Criminal Defense Practice Daniel Ades has been a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society for 9 years. From 2016-17 he was part of the Society s DNA Unit. He was a member for the Frye litigation team in People v. Collins and was responsible for cross examining the OCME statistician who developed the Forensic Statistical Tool
software program. He has argued Daubert issues before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, given presentations on forensic DNA and Firearms/Toolmark evidence, and conducted model cross examinations of a criminalist. He has a B.A. from Amherst College and a J.D. from New York University School of Law. Susanna De La Pava Supervising Attorney, Legal Aid Criminal Defense Practice Susanna De La Pava grew up in Brooklyn and is a graduate of Occidental College and Brooklyn Law School. She has been a public defender for over 22 years, beginning first as a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society and serving for the past 8 years as a Supervising Attorney in Legal Aid's Kings County Criminal Defense Practice. She has conducted, second-sat, and supervised a multitude of felony and misdemeanor trials and also briefed and argued over 40 appeals in the First and Second Appellate Divisions. She successfully secured the reversal of a life sentence in the New York State Court of Appeals. FOURTH PANEL: 4:00pm to 4:50pm 1.0 CLE Credits Title: Eyewitness Testimony: Perception versus Reality Basima Hafiz Attorney, NYCDS Basima Hafiz is a trial attorney with NYCDS. Recently, Basima litigated a Frye hearing and presented expert testimony at trial on several factors contributing to misidentifications in criminal cases. Prior to joining NYCDS, Basima worked at the Bronx Defenders and Legal Aid Society s Parole Revocation Defense Unit. While attending Brooklyn Law School where she was an Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Fellow, Basima interned at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center and Georgia Capital Defenders, as well participating in the law school s Capital Habeas Clinic. Dr. Nancy Franklin Professor, Stony Brook University Nancy Franklin (Ph.D., Stanford, Psychology) is a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Stony Brook University. Her research interests include eyewitness error, human cognition, false memory, and the impact of emotions such as anger and threat on perception, memory, and judgment. Dr. Franklin has consulted as an eyewitness identification and memory expert in more than 400 cases in New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Missouri, and Washington, D.C. Leila Hull Supervising Attorney, Appellate Advocates Leila Hull has spent the last 7 years at Appellate Advocates, first as a staff attorney and now a supervising attorney. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and Brooklyn Law School. Prior to law school, she worked for international human rights organizations based in the United States and abroad. During law school, she represented asylum applicants through the Safe Harbor Clinic and was an
Executive Articles Editor for the Brooklyn Journal of International Law, and interned for the American Civil Liberties Union and Legal Aid s Prisoners Rights Project. After graduating, she clerked for the Honorable Gabriel W. Gorenstein in the Southern District of New York before joining Appellate Advocates. Peter Wolk Attorney, Special Litigation Unit, NYCDS Peter Wolk is a staff attorney at New York County Defender Services and member of the Special Litigation Unit. Last year he litigated a Frye hearing in which both sides presented expert testimony on the relationship between confidence and accuracy and the current consensus in the scientific community on this issue. Before joining NYCDS in 2004, Peter was a partner at Schuman Abramson Morak & Wolk, a Special Assistant Attorney General for the Special Prosecutor for Medicaid Fraud, the court attorney to the Hon. Leonard P. Rienzi, and a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn and at Bedford Stuyvesant Community Legal Services. In 2017, New York State Bar Association recognized Peter s contributions with the Denison Ray Criminal Defender Award. Peter also has written extensively for television, with credits including Criminal Justice for HBO, The Defenders for Showtime, and Monk for USA. (# # #)