Lectures
Please find below a series of lectures from world-class capital defenders. New lectures are frequently added to the Hub. Transcripts in English as well as in French are available for most lectures.
Topics:
Effective Representation, The Right to Release and Bail, False and Involuntary Confessions, Plea Negotiation, An Introduction to Mitigation, Opening Statements, Cross-examination, Mental Health and Intellectual Disability, Litigating Trauma, Representing Foreign Nationals, Representing Women, Working with the media and social media, Storytelling, Narrative, and Persuasion, Appeals.
Effective Representation by Celia Rumman
The Right to Release and Bail by Pamela Okoroigwe
Pamela Okoroigwe is a Senior Legal and Programme Officer with Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP), where she conducts legal research, delivers pro bono services to survivors of human rights violations, and litigates capital cases in trial and appellate courts in Nigeria. She is a member of the Nigeria Death Penalty Group (NDELPEG), a coalition of over 20 civil society organizations advocating for the abolition of death penalty in Nigeria, and is a Chartered Secretary and member of the Nigerian Bar Association. She is also the coordinator of the Working Group of Eight (WG8) on violence against women in Lagos, Nigeria.
False and Involuntary Confessions by Michael O’Connor
English Transcript & French Transcript
Michael O’Connor is a Professor of Law at the University of La Verne College of Law. As a practicing lawyer, he represented death-sentenced prisoners across the U.S. for almost two decades. He was a co-finalist for Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, for his work in the case of State of Alabama v. Walter McMillian. His comparative scholarship (with co-author Celia Rumann) on efforts to combat terrorism has been cited in official U.S. and British government documents, in white papers produced by Harvard, Yale, and Columbia Universities, and in pleadings filed before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Plea Negotiation by Chimwemwe Chithope-Mwale
Chimwemwe Chithope-Mwale is the Chief Legal Aid Advocate at the Malawi Legal Aid Bureau, a government office mandated to provide legal aid to indigent persons. He has represented over 100 clients facing the death penalty during his time at Legal Aid. He presently heads one of only three regional Legal Aid Bureau offices in Malawi. He is also the Treasurer of the Mzuzu Chapter of the Malawi Law Society. Chimwemwe was a Fellow of the 2017 Makwanyane Institute at the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.
An Introduction to Mitigation by Jessica Sutton
English Transcript & PowerPoint Presentation
Jessica Sutton is a staff attorney at the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic, which she joined in 2010. During law school, Jessica co-founded a community-based legal clinic serving transgender people in Boston, including those who are incarcerated. Jessica also interned at the New York Civil Liberties Union and volunteered for the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. she founded her own criminal defense practice and provided consultation and training to capital defense teams nationwide in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union, Advancing Real Change, and state and federal defender agencies. Most recently, she consulted on the Alice Project with the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.
Opening Statements by Celia Rumann
English Transcript & French Transcript
Celia Rumann is a Professor, criminal defense lawyer, and filmmaker focused on teaching and research in the areas of human rights and methods used to combat terrorism, such as torture. She is a co-author of “Federal Sentencing Law and Practice” (Thompson Reuters). She has authored and co-authored a number of articles including “Tortured History: Finding our Way Back to the Lost Origins of the Eighth Amendment” in the Pepperdine Law Review, and “Into the Fire: How to Avoid Being Burned by the Same Mistakes Made Fighting Terrorism in Northern Ireland” in the Cardozo Law Review (with Michael O’Connor). She has presented her scholarship in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in addition to the United States.
Cross-examination by Celia Rumann
Celia Rumann is a Professor, criminal defense lawyer, and filmmaker focused on teaching and research in the areas of human rights and methods used to combat terrorism, such as torture. She is a co-author of “Federal Sentencing Law and Practice” (Thompson Reuters). She has authored and co-authored a number of articles including “Tortured History: Finding our Way Back to the Lost Origins of the Eighth Amendment” in the Pepperdine Law Review, and “Into the Fire: How to Avoid Being Burned by the Same Mistakes Made Fighting Terrorism in Northern Ireland” in the Cardozo Law Review (with Michael O’Connor). She has presented her scholarship in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in addition to the United States.
Mental health and Intellectual Disability by Marc Tassé
English Transcript & French Transcript
PowerPoint Presentation (only available in French)
Marc J. Tassé, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at The Ohio State University. He is also the Director of the Ohio State Nisonger Center, a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities. Tassé has more than 30 years of experience in conducting research and providing clinical services in the field of intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, and other related neurodevelopmental disorders. His publications include more than 155 articles in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, and books. He has given 275+ scientific and professional presentations on topics related to ID, ASD, and other neurodevelopmental disorders. He is also actively involved in conducting evaluations and giving expert testimony in capital cases where intellectual disability is an issue.
Litigating Trauma by Denny LeBoeuf
English Transcript & French Transcript
Denny LeBoeuf is the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s John Adams Project, assisting in the defense of the capitally charged Guantánamo detainees. Previously, she served as the director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, which works toward the end of the death penalty by supporting repeal and reform with public education, advocacy, and targeted litigation. She has been a capital defender for over 20 years, representing persons facing death at trial and post-conviction in state and federal courts. She further teaches and consults with capital defense teams nationally.
Representing foreign nationals in capital cases by Sandra Babcock
English Transcript & French Transcript
Sandra Babcock is a Clinical Professor at Cornell Law School, where she is the Faculty Director and founder of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. Over the last thirty years she has helped defend hundreds of men and women facing execution around the world. She represented Mexico before the International Court of Justice in Avena and Other Mexican Nationals. She spearheaded a ten-year project in Malawi that ultimately resulted in the release of over 250 prisoners, 150 of whom were formerly sentenced to death. She moved to Cornell Law in 2014, where she founded the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. In 2018, together with her colleagues at CDPW, she launched the Alice Project, a global movement to end extreme sentencing of women and gender non-conforming individuals. Her clinic currently represents women facing the death penalty in the United States, Malawi, and Tanzania. She has authored numerous articles, book chapters and reports on the application of the death penalty under international law. In 2021, she received the American Bar Association’s John Paul Stevens Guiding Hand of Counsel Award, given to one capital defender every two years whose work has improved the legal representation of persons facing the death penalty and contributed to systemic reform.
Representing women facing the death penalty by Sandra Babcock
English Transcript & French Transcript
Sandra Babcock is a Clinical Professor at Cornell Law School, where she is the Faculty Director and founder of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. Over the last thirty years she has helped defend hundreds of men and women facing execution around the world. She represented Mexico before the International Court of Justice in Avena and Other Mexican Nationals. She spearheaded a ten-year project in Malawi that ultimately resulted in the release of over 250 prisoners, 150 of whom were formerly sentenced to death. She moved to Cornell Law in 2014, where she founded the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. In 2018, together with her colleagues at CDPW, she launched the Alice Project, a global movement to end extreme sentencing of women and gender non-conforming individuals. Her clinic currently represents women facing the death penalty in the United States, Malawi, and Tanzania. She has authored numerous articles, book chapters and reports on the application of the death penalty under international law. In 2021, she received the American Bar Association’s John Paul Stevens Guiding Hand of Counsel Award, given to one capital defender every two years whose work has improved the legal representation of persons facing the death penalty and contributed to systemic reform.
Working with the media and social media by Robin Maher
English Transcript & French Transcript
Presentation on Working with the Media and Social Media
Robin M. Maher is an Adjunct Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School. Her experience includes direct representation of state and federally death-sentenced prisoners; training of judges and defense lawyers on the fundamentals of effective capital defense; legal reform efforts with legislators; systemic litigation in jurisdictions that fail to provide necessary defense services; strategic assistance and support to capital defense teams. For thirteen years she was the Director of the American Bar Association Death Penalty Representation Project and served as the ABA’s expert on legal representation in death penalty cases. She led the effort that resulted in the American Bar Association Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases, which is now the national standard of care for the capital defense effort in the United States.
Storytelling, Narrative, and Persuasion by John H. Blume
English Transcript & French Transcript
John H. Blume is the Director of the Cornell Death Penalty Project and Professor at Cornell Law School. He is one of the foremost death penalty practitioners in the United States, with particular expertise on the application of the death penalty to individuals with intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses. Internationally, he has been involved for the past four years in several projects related to improving the quality of capital defense in China. The first capital punishment clinic in China, launched by Professor Hongyao Wu of China University of Political Science and Law in 2010, is the result of an ongoing collaboration with Professor Blume.
Appeals by Celia Rumann
English Transcript & French Transcript
Celia Rumann is a Professor, criminal defense lawyer, and filmmaker focused on teaching and research in the areas of human rights and methods used to combat terrorism, such as torture. She is a co-author of “Federal Sentencing Law and Practice” (Thompson Reuters). She has authored and co-authored a number of articles including “Tortured History: Finding our Way Back to the Lost Origins of the Eighth Amendment” in the Pepperdine Law Review, and “Into the Fire: How to Avoid Being Burned by the Same Mistakes Made Fighting Terrorism in Northern Ireland” in the Cardozo Law Review (with Michael O’Connor). She has presented her scholarship in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in addition to the United States.