2020 Public Defender Attorney Virtual Conference August 19-21 – Zoom Webinar ELECTRONIC CONFERENCE MATERIALS* *This PDF file contains "bookmarks," which serve as a clickable table of contents that allows you to easily skip around and locate documents within the larger file. A bookmark panel should automatically appear on the left-hand side of this screen. If it does not, click the icon—located on the left-hand side of the open PDF document—that looks like a dog-eared page with a ribbon hanging from the top. 2020 Public Defender Attorney Virtual Conference August 19-21, 2020 Co-Sponsored by the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government, North Carolina Office of Indigent Defense Services, North Carolina Association of Public Defenders, & North Carolina Association of Public Defender Investigators ************************************** ATTORNEY AGENDA (This conference offers 10.25 hours of CLE credit. All hours are general credit hours unless otherwise noted.) Wednesday, August 19 1:05 p.m. Welcome & Announcements John Rubin and Phil Dixon UNC School of Government, Chapel Hill, NC 1:15 p.m. A View from the Executive Director [15 min.] Mary Pollard, IDS Executive Director Durham, NC 1:30 p.m. Ethical Obligations to Other Attorneys [60 min.] [ethics] Tucker Charns, IDS Regional Defender, Durham, NC Timothy Heinle, SOG Civil Defender Educator, Chapel Hill, NC 2:30 p.m. Break 2:45 p.m. First Amendment Defenses in Criminal Cases [60 mins.] Glenn Gerding, Appellate Defender Jim Grant, Assistant Appellate Defender Office of the Appellate Defender, Durham, NC 3:45 p.m. Break 4:00 p.m. Racial Justice Litigation Update [60 min.] Emily Coward, Project Attorney, Public Defense Education Elizabeth Hambourger, Attorney, Center for Death Penalty Litigation 5:00 Adjourn Thursday, August 20 9:30 a.m. Understanding the Victim’s Rights Amendment [45 mins.] Mary Stansell and Molly Hanes, Assistant Public Defenders Office of the Public Defender, Raleigh, NC 10:15 a.m. Break 10:30 a.m. Criminal Case Update [75 min.] John Rubin and Phil Dixon UNC School of Government, Chapel Hill, NC 11:45 a.m. Lunch [60 min.] 12:45 p.m. COVID Legal Issues and Strategies [60 min.] Ian Mance, Legal Resource Attorney UNC School of Government, Chapel Hill, NC 1:45 p.m. Break 2:00 p.m. Bringing Justice to Our Communities [60 min.] Dawn Blagrove, Attorney, Executive Director Emancipate NC 3:00 p.m. Adjourn Friday, August 21 9:00 a.m. Bail Reform in North Carolina [60 mins.] Jessica Smith, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Public Law and Government UNC School of Government, Chapel Hill, NC 10:00 a.m. Break 10:15 a.m. Restorative Justice [60 mins.] [Ethics] Jon Powell, Director, Restorative Justice Clinic Campbell University School of Law, Raleigh, NC 11:15 a.m. Break 11:30 a.m. Identifying and Challenging Digital Surveillance [60 mins.] [Technology] Mark Rumold, Senior Staff Attorney Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, CA 12:30 p.m. Adjourn CLE HOURS General: Up to 7.25 Ethics: Up to 2.0 Technology: 1.0 Total CLE Hours: 10.25 2019-20 OFFICE ACCOMPLISHMENTS (50th PD Anniversary & Coronavirus Edition) SUCCESS FOR CLIENTS Trial victories APDs Natasha Adams and Carter Thompson in Orange County tried a case involving unlawful athlete agent inducement charges, perhaps the only one that has ever been tried. One of the witnesses was a person who was a Dallas Cowboys player who had health issues that legitimately prevented him from coming to court in NC. The witness was going to appear virtually (prior to Covid 19). Natasha and Carter got the judge to give them a lawyer to be present when he testified in a room at the Dallas Cowboys training center and thought of everything about aspects of virtual testimony, which was very unusual at that time. At the end of the case, they got a hung jury. In the interim, their client got a 20-year sentence in another state, but despite that the special prosecutor wants to retry it. https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/orange-county-news/mistrial-declared-for-former-unc- football-player-in-nc-agents-case/ Guilford APD John Davis tried a case to a not guilty verdict despite two confessions. The judge sanctioned the prosecutor for yelling at the jury after the verdict, which resulted in Guilford prosecutors’ being banned by the elected DA from speaking to jurors even after a trial is over. John took all kind of guff from the State and the bench for trying an identity theft case. He was overruled on very basic rules of law, which the State did not seem to understand or know existed. An example from the bench, “You cannot infer evidence of a third party being guilty.” Apparently, the jury thought otherwise, as they delivered a verdict of not guilty. Living every defense attorney’s nightmare, Guilford APD Rip Fiser represented a client charged with conspiracy to sell/deliver marijuana; maintaining a dwelling; and possession of a firearm by a felon. The client claimed to be of the Moorish Nation (need we say more) and not subject to the laws of the US, and he was very hostile to Rip and sought to remove Rip from representing him and to proceed pro se. Of course Rip was kept on as standby counsel, and after the State’s second witness, the defendant relented to have Rip complete the trial. At the close of the State’s evidence, the conspiracy charge was dismissed, and the client ultimately got supervised probation. Guilford APD Johnna Herron tried 11 cases to a jury last year. In one, the jury stayed out until 10:30 PM on a Friday (about 7.5 hours) before the judge declared a mistrial. In that case, the client was on an audio recording confessing to trafficking amounts of heroin and cocaine, guns, etc., after the officer warned him that they would charge the mother of his newborn son if he didn’t own up. It came in evidence that he attempted to provide substantial assistance twice (first as he was being arrested and later at the office of a private attorney he ended up not hiring), and there was also a trafficking amount of cocaine at another house associated with him, which came in as 404(b) evidence. The split was 11-1 not guilty on the drugs and 10-2 not guilty on the guns. While the jurors were deliberating, the judge ordered pizza for them and everyone in the 1 courtroom, including Johnna’s client’s family and even her client in the lock-up. Reportedly, the veteran drug prosecutor was quite befuddled, as is shown in this picture with former and original Chief PD Wally Harrelson gazing over him in the portrait. Befuddled ADA and Wally As of May 14, 2019, the High Point APDs were undefeated in jury trials for the previous year. First District APDs Jay Hollingsworth and John Raper tried a sex offense with a child and indecent liberties case in Currituck County and received Not Guilty verdicts, after their client had turned down a time-served plea. Carteret County APDs Drew Jones and Josh Winks recently got a not guilty verdict in a bench trial of a second degree rape case. The client had been in jail 765 days, and the issue was whether the contact was consensual. Not knowing when jury trials might resume, and believing the senior resident superior court judge would be at least as fair as any potential jury, Drew and Josh rolled the dice and won. New Hanover APDs Alexis Perkins and Lyana Hunter each prevailed on juvenile delinquency matters on the same day. Alexis got the judge to dismiss an assault on a government official because her client was charged as a government official, and he was a contractor working at the school. Lyana won a juvenile trial where the court dismissed a sexual battery charge where the state failed to prove that the assault was for sexual gratification and /or sexual arousal. On his very first day in the office, Guilford APD Tom Smothers agreed to assist an unrepresented defendant as a “friend of the court” on an assault on a female case involving a cross-warrant where the other party had retained counsel. The judge had denied the defendant’s 2 requests for appointment of counsel and for a continuance to hire counsel, forcing the defendant to proceed to trial. Tom tried the case on the spot and got a not guilty verdict. In a retrial of a second degree murder case, Buncombe ACD Sam Snead and his team got a voluntary manslaughter conviction. The DA had turned down an offer of voluntary manslaughter with a multiple-year sentence. Sam’s client testified in his own defense and reportedly did very well. It was just a “day in the life” (per his Chief PD) of Guilford APD Juan Zuluaga, wherein Juan got a not guilty verdict on a communicating threats and trespass case and nonsuits on an assault on a female case, and an AWDW and simple assault cases. PD John Nieman described Juan’s achievement as “three trials in one day, and three amazing results.” Appellate victories AAD Emily Davis prevailed in State v. Keller, in which the NC Supreme Court held that the requested entrapment defense instruction should have been given and ordered a new trial. In State v. Grady, Appellate Defender Glenn Gerding succeeded in getting the NC Supreme Court to rule that lifetime SBM based solely on recidivism is unconstitutional. Glenn attributes his success to an OAD team effort and says that everyone contributed to it.