Law Briefs |
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| Jeffrey Rodriguez, his mother, and Santa Clara Law student Curtis Macon, who helped on the case. |
The Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara Law recently played a supporting role in getting a wrongfully convicted Santa Clara man released from prison. In February, Jeffrey Rodriguez, 29, was freed after serving nearly six years in prison for a 2001 robbery he did not commit. Rodriguez was serving a 25-year-to-life sentence when appellate attorney Irma Castillo convinced the Sixth District Court of Appeal to grant him a new trial. Public Defender Andy Gutierrez was appointed to represent him, and contacted the Innocence Project for help.
Curtis Macon, a law student intern there, worked closely with Gutierrez in conducting extensive investigation and research, including diagramming the discrepancies in the testimony by the crime victim, and re-enacting the crime. They also re-examined key evidence in the case, a pair of jeans and a surveillance video, to prove that Rodriguez was not involved in the crime.
Rodriguez’s case had originally been highlighted in a March 2006 series in the San Jose Mercury News that looked at wrongful convictions in Santa Clara County.
Law Center Celebration
About 120 people attended the ninth annual Community, Commitment, and Courage celebration on October 5. The event, held at the Adobe Lodge, raised $19,600 for the Katharine and George Alexander Community Law Center.
Alumnus Kimberly Pederson ’04, who now works for the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, was honored with the Commitment Award for her public interest work. The Community Award was presented to the Burlingame law firm of Cotchett, Pitre, Simon & McCarthy. The Courage Award was given to a Center client, Raman Alcayde, for speaking out against injustice. The Eric and Nancy Wright Award was given to Lynette Parker, an immigration law attorney at the Center.
Gender and Law Conference
Legal scholars from across the nation gathered at Santa Clara Law on April 20 for the 2007 Gender and Law Conference, sponsored by the Center for Social Justice and Public Service. The event, called The Power of Women’s Stories: Women’s Role in Law and the Legal Profession, featured four panels covering such topics as oppression, work, money, technology, and decision-making. The keynote speaker was Elizabeth Schneider from Brooklyn Law School who presented “How Civil Litigation Disempowers Women’s Stories: The Problem of Summary Judgment.” For more information on the conference, visit www.scu.edu/genderlaw07.
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| Santa Clara Law participants included Stephanie Wildman, Margalynne Armstrong, Marina Hsieh, Catherine Sandoval, Michelle Oberman, and Lia Epperson. |
Two New Law Study Abroad Programs
Two new summer law study abroad programs have been added to Santa Clara Law's extensive offerings. The first will study comparative law and the law of cultural properties in Istanbul, Turkey, and the second will study comparative law of the European Union in Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest.
The Istanbul program’s law of cultural properties is an emerging field which looks at such subjects as archeology. Students will be able to visit an archeological dig, and attend classes taught by experts in the field of cultural property. The Vienna/Bratislava/Budapest program includes a boat ride from Vienna, Austria to Bratislava, Slovakia.
The new programs join existing SCU programs in Australia, Costa Rica, England, Germany, Hong Kong/China, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore/ South Korea, and Geneva, Switzerland/Strasbourg, France. For more information, see www.scu.edu/law/international.
Law Students Spend Spring Break Helping In New Orleans
A group of law school students and faculty spent their spring break, March 3-11, helping New Orleans’ beleaguered legal system cope with the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Ten students worked with the Orleans Indigent Defenders Project and 14 others were placed with other legal aid organizations. Students helped with various legal work, ranging from research and writing to interviewing.
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| Santa Clara Law students pose for a photo at Jackson Square |
The students were accompanied by several faculty members, including Professor Margalynne Armstrong, legal research and writing instructor Evangeline Abriel and Linda Starr, supervising attorney of the Northern California Innocence Project.
SBA President Dan Schaar, a second year law student who was part of the group, kept a weblog, which includes photos and contributions from other participants. To visit his blog, click here.
Panelli Golf Classic
The eighth annual Justice Edward Panelli Golf Classic was held on October 2 at the San Jose Country Club. The event raises funds for endowed scholarships, as well as for the Law Alumni Emergency Loan Program. More than 70 golfers participated in the tournament, and more than $15,000 was raised.
A highlight of the event was the hole in one hit by Graham Morland, a Santa Cruz County real estate broker and friend of Justice Panelli. Morland’s prize was a car donated by Bob Lewis Volkswagen. This year’s event will be held on June 25. Space is limited. Please contact the alumni office to sign up.
Law Students Win International Criminal Court Moot Competition
Santa Clara Law’s International Criminal Court moot team took first place at the international competition at Pace Law School in New York in November. The Santa Clara team, comprised of Jacqueline Binger, Sharron Fang, and Jessica Tilson, defeated teams from New York University and Louisiana State University in the finals. Competitors included teams from the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Jessica Tilson also won the award for Best Defense Brief and Jacqueline Binger won Third Best Oralist. Students served as counsel for several parties in a hypothetical case involving alleged war crimes and other criminal acts by peacekeepers in the fictional nation of Razachstan.
Patent Policy Conference
A conference examining recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on patents, and patent law reform in Congress was held at Santa Clara Law on October 27. The conference attracted academic scholars from across the nation to discuss those issues, as well as two cases the Supreme Court is hearing in the current term, KSR International v. Teleflex and MedImmune v. Genetech. The event was co-sponsored by the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at Boalt Hall School of Law, U.C. Berkeley, and the High Technology Law Institute at Santa Clara Law.
International Exchange Students at Santa Clara Law
International exchange students have become part of the student mix at Santa Clara Law each academic year, taking classes and experiencing American life. The program began several years ago.
“Everyone was very friendly and supportive,” said Hennings Peters, a 21-year-old student from Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Germany, who studied at SCU during the Fall 2006 semester. “I enjoyed every part of the exchange.”
Peters took courses in copyright law, business organizations, and regulation of international business transactions while at SCU. He had been an exchange student in Australia during high school, and said his own law school exposed him to American and English legal systems before he came to SCU.
A new group of international students comes each semester, according to Elizabeth Powers, Assistant Dean for International and Comparative Law and executive director of the Center for Global Law and Policy. As part of their immersion into Santa Clara Law, international students are offered workshops on how to brief cases, write an outline and take a law school exam. Other students participating during the fall semester came from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and the University of Vienna Law School in Vienna, Austria.
Fall Speakers at Santa Clara Law
The Fall semester brought a number of interesting and provocative speakers to Santa Clara Law. The majority were sponsored by the school's Center for Social Justice and Public Service. “The students really appreciate the extracurricular learning opportunity that these engaging speakers provide,” said Stephanie Wildman, law professor and director of the Center.
Rachel Moran, a professor of law at Boalt Hall School of Law at U.C. Berkeley, presented “The Heirs of Brown: A Case Study of Grutter v. Bollinger” in a social justice workshop on Sept. 14. She has published and lectured extensively in the areas of affirmative action, desegregation, and bilingual education.
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| Rachel Moran |
Cynthia Chandler, co-founder and acting director of Justice Now, presented “Seeking Justice for Women in Prisons” at a Social Justice Monday on Sept. 18.
Jose Padilla, executive director of California Rural Legal Assistance, presented “Surviving 40 Years of Poverty Law Practice: Salvaging Justice—Promises Made to the Rural and Farm Worker Poor” on Oct. 16. CRLA’s legal work emphasizes assistance to the special needs of farm workers, with cases focusing on pesticide exposure, housing, labor, rural education, civil rights, immigration, and environmental justice.
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| Jose Padilla |
Susan Sandler, president of the Justice Matters Institute, presented “Addressing Discriminatory Effects of High Stakes Testing in California Public Schools” at a Social Justice Workshop on Oct. 24. Sandler conducts research, advocacy, and policy work to increase access to education for low-income communities and communities of color in California.
Dennis Parker, director of the national American Civil Liberty Union’s Racial Justice Program, presented “Discipline Policies and the ‘Schools to Prisons’ Pipeline” on Nov. 2 at a social justice workshop.
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| Dennis Parker |
Bill Quigley, law professor and director of the law clinic and Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University in New Orleans, presented “New Orleans and Katrina Recovery Efforts” on Oct. 26. He is the author of Ending Poverty as We Know It: Guaranteeing a Right to a Job at a Living Wage and has litigated numerous cases with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the ACLU of Louisiana.
Attorneys Kevin Bankston from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Ann Brick from the ACLU of Northern California presented “Social Justice and Cyber Liberties” on Nov. 6, at a Social Justice Monday event co-sponsored with the High Tech Law Institute. Bankston specializes in free speech and privacy law, and has examined the impact of post-9/11 anti-terrorism laws and surveillance initiatives on online privacy and free expression. He previously worked at the ACLU in New York, where he litigated internet-related free speech cases.
Brick’s work at the ACLU focuses in large part on technology issues, with an emphasis on the rights of free expression and privacy.
Charles Lawrence, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, presented "Politics of Reforming Urban Schools" on Nov. 9. Professor Lawrence is known for his work in anti-discrimination law, equal protection and critical race theory, and has served on the District of Columbia Board of Education.
At the Fall 2006 Social Justice Diversity Lecture on Nov. 9, Mari Matsuda, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, presented "The Last Public Place: On Schools and Democracy." The event was co-sponsored with the Office of Multicultural Learning, College of Arts and Sciences, and the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association. Professor Matsuda has written on hate speech, affirmative action, and feminist theory, and is currently serving on the Texaco Task Force on Equality and Fairness as part of a record-setting anti-discrimination settlement. Her books include Called from Within, Words that Wound, and, as co-author, We Won’t Go Back: Making a Case for Affirmative Action.
Professor Stephanie Wildman said an e-mail from second year law student Olivia Lee underscored the impact such speakers can have: "Professor Matsuda’s message called to action and awakened listeners for the betterment of our society. This lecture was definitely the most meaningful event I ever attended and proved to me the high quality of speakers that visit our law school."
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| James Forman |
James Forman, associate professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and co-founder of the Maya Angelou Charter School, presented "The Rise and Fall of School Vouchers: A Story of Race, Religion and Politics," in a Social Justice Workshop on Nov. 21. The Maya Angelou Charter School, founded in 1997, combines rigorous education, job training, counseling, mental health services, life skills training, and dormitory living for school dropouts and youth who have been incarcerated.
Other speakers on campus during the fall semester:
The Honorable Alex Kozinski and The Honorable Stephen R. Reinhardt, both circuit judges with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, spoke on Oct. 17 at the Fourth Annual Judge William A. Ingram Memorial Symposium, Civility in the Legal Profession: The Labeling, Rating, and Ranking of Judges.
Judge Kozinski was appointed to the court by President Ronald Reagan, and Judge Reinhardt was appointed by President Jimmy Carter.
Judge Kozinski is a graduate of UCLA Law School, clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger, and later worked in the White House Counsel’s Office for then-President Reagan. His writing is often humorous, and has been featured in magazines such as Forbes and Slate.
Judge Reinhardt is a graduate of Yale Law School. His varied career includes clerking for a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and private practice as an entertainment and labor lawyer in Los Angeles. He was a member of the Democratic National Committee and chairman of the Los Angeles Police Commission, 1978-1980.
Pablo Saavedra, Secretary of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, presented "The Reparations in the Case Law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights" on Nov. 1. He is a Chilean attorney, and acts as the registrar of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San Jose, Costa Rica. As an attorney for the National Corporation on Reparation and Reconciliation of Chile, he investigated human rights violations that occurred in Chile between 1973 and 1980.
Edward Kwakwa, legal counsel to the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, visited Santa Clara Law on Nov. 9-11. He presented "The Role of the Legal Advisor in International Organizations" and "Intellectual Property Across Borders." Before joining WIPO, Dr. Kwakwa worked in Geneva as an international legal advisor at the Commission on Global Governance, as senior legal advisor at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and as Legal Affairs Officer at the World Trade Organization. He is the author of two books and numerous articles on international law.
Paul Bergman, a UCLA law professor, presented "Reel Justice," a lecture/film program on Nov. 13, in an event sponsored by the Heafey Center for Trial and Appellate Advocacy. The presentation was based on his book, Reel Justice: The Courtoom Goes to the Movies (1996), which he co-authored with Professor Michael Asimow, and which looks at popular culture, movies, and the law. He has co-authored other books on deposition questioning and trial advocacy for attorneys, and several self-help litigation books with Nolo Books.
