Criminal Appeals Clinic I

Catalog description

The seminar component of this course consists of intensive training in appellate advocacy with emphasis on writing and the evaluation and digesting of records on appeal. The seminar also covers specific problems of New York State criminal procedure, in particular: prosecutorial misconduct, judge's charges, search and seizure, confessions, identification testimony, and preservation of appellate issues. Pursuant to a special order of the Appellate Division, First Department, students enrolled in the Clinic also represent indigent appellants on appeal and argue the cases before the court. Such authorization is unprecedented in New York, and it presents an extraordinary opportunity for those students who participate. Intensive training in appellate advocacy is imparted during the fall semester. Working almost exclusively through real transcripts of actual trials, this phase of the course emphasizes the crafts, skills, and cunning required to produce a first-rate advocate's brief. Students begin with a short brief-writing exercise based upon a rather simple transcript and work their way up to handling a lengthy and complex murder case for which each student writes a soup-to-nuts brief. All practice work is closely edited and analyzed. The fall semester is designed to bring the students' skills up to the level where they will be equipped to undertake the more adventurous phase of the course during the spring semester. Each student is assigned to write the brief for an appeal from a serious felony conviction pending at the Appellate Division. Each student's work will be supervised by an experienced appellate practitioner, and the student will later appear at the Appellate Division to personally argue the appeal. Visits to the incarcerated client are expected. Each Appeals Clinic student will be assigned to work on an appeal with an experienced appellate lawyer who will…