Santa Clara University

Law Briefs

11th Annual Death Penalty College

One of the key summer events at the School of Law is the Death Penalty College, which held its 11th session last August. The annual program offers a six-day intensive training program for more than 60 defense attorneys who have pending capital cases.

"When it started, it was unique, in that lawyers bring actual cases to the workshop," says SCU law professor Ellen Kreitzberg, who directs the program.

Since then, the program has become a model for other programs throughout the nation, including one started at the University of Michigan two years ago. Similar colleges are being planned in Texas and Kansas, she said.

The SCU Death Penalty College has become a model for other programs throughout the nation, including one started at the University of Michigan two years ago. Similar colleges are being planned in Texas and Kansas.

Participants pay tuition to attend the program, and death penalty attorneys volunteer as faculty. Both students and faculty spend the week in seminars and discussions of ongoing cases in small-group workshops.

The college focuses on helping attorneys learn how to present the penalty phase of a death penalty case, which is held after a guilty verdict has been reached in a criminal trial. During the penalty phase, a jury considers factors that shape a defendant's life.

"Each defendant is more than the worst thing they've ever done," said Kreitzberg, who has worked on death penalty cases on a pro bono basis in the South.

College participants, who are used to analyzing and arguing the law, are taught what may be new skills-how to collect information and investigate a person's background. "You're not looking at facts, but at social history," Kreitzberg says. "It's very much like social work."

In addition, courtroom techniques, such as closing statements and responding to damaging evidence, are emphasized in the training. "A lot of training programs can give training on the current status of law or appeals," Kreitzberg says, "but we look at the abstract issue of how to present a case."

Kreitzberg believes the program is a good fit at SCU because of the emphasis placed on compassion and mercy by the Catholic Church and the Jesuits, and because of the Church's opposition to the death penalty.

The program doesn't track participants' cases, and Kreitzberg says the impact is hard to measure. Many past participants report on the progress of their cases years after they have attended the program, she adds.

"What is a victory?" she asks. "Often they're energized to go out and settle their cases. That's a victory because a life is saved."