School of Law with University of Texas, Austin and Amicus - CANCELLED
This event will be chaired by Paul Roberts, Professor of Criminal Jurisprudence, School of Law.
Experts
Raoul Schonemann
Raoul Schonemann is a clinical professor and the co-director of the Capital Punishment Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, Texas. For the past 25 years, he has defended people facing the death penalty in Texas, California, Alabama, and Georgia, primarily in appellate and post-conviction habeas corpus proceedings.
Prior to joining the law school, he was employed as the managing attorney of the Capital Litigation Unit at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta; as a deputy public defender at the Office of the State Public Defender in San Francisco; and as a staff attorney at the Texas Resource Center in Austin.
In 2003, he served as a consultant to the American Bar Association in its revision of the "Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases". He is a co-chair of the Death Penalty Committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and has previously served as NACDL’s national capital defense training coordinator.
Jim Marcus
Since graduating law school in 1993, Jim Marcus has represented death-sentenced clients at every level of state and federal habeas corpus proceedings. Mr Marcus began his career at the Texas Resource Center. In 1995, he helped found the Texas Defender Service, a non-profit capital defense project.
Mr Marcus served as the Executive Director of Texas Defender Service from 1997 until 2006, when he joined the Capital Punishment Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law.
Mr Marcus is currently a Clinical Professor and Co-Director of the Capital Punishment Clinic and a Texas Habeas Assistance and Training Counsel. In the latter capacity, Mr Marcus trains and supports capital habeas counsel in Texas cases and lectures in capital defense seminars across the nation.
Thea Posel
Thea Posel is a research fellow and clinical instructor in the Capital Punishment Clinic. She has worked with capital defense teams in both Colorado and Texas, from pre-trial litigation prep and consulting to state and federal post-conviction cases. She now works primarily on Texas state court advocacy and consulting at the capital trial, appellate, and habeas stages.
She co-teaches "Providing Effective Assistance of Counsel in Capital Trials" with Professor Raoul Schonemann and assisted in the development of the interdisciplinary "Mitigation Matters" course, a collaboration between the Capital Punishment Center faculty and the Steve Hicks School of Social Work.
Thea holds a sociology degree from the University of Colorado, where her undergraduate research focused on the effects of race and class in capital prosecutions, sentencing outcomes, and participation in the criminal justice system as well as social and environmental effects and attitudes surrounding the death penalty in Colorado.
Along with Professors Jordan Steiker and Jim Marcus, she is a co-author of The Problem of "Rubber-Stamping" in State Capital Habeas Proceedings: A Harris County Case Study, 55.