Abbe Lyn Smith (born 1956) is a criminal defense lawyer and professor of American law at Georgetown University Law Center. Smith is the Director of Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic and Co-Director of Fellowship Program E. Barrett Prettyman.
Prior to joining the faculty at Georgetown Law, Smith worked as a public defender in Philadelphia for many years and he was also at the faculty at Harvard Law School. Professor Smith regularly writes and comments on criminal defense, the criminal justice system, criminal prosecution, legal ethics, and juvenile justice. Smith wrote memoirs about his experience helping Patsy Kelly Jarrett get his freedom from the belief that Jarrett maintains his innocence.
Video Abbe Smith
Education
Smith earned his Bachelor of Arts from Yale College in 1978 and a law degree from New York University School of Law in 1982. During his second year of law school at NYU - while working at the Prison Clinic with Professor Claudia Angelos - Smith began work federal habeas corpus petition Patsy Kelly Jarrett. In March 1977, a jury found Jarrett guilty of two counts of murder and two charges of robbery, but Jarrett maintained his innocence. Smith handles Jarrett's case for the next 25 years. From 2005-2006, Smith was a graduate of the Fulbright Program at the University of Melbourne School of Law in Melbourne, Australia.
Maps Abbe Smith
Legal career
Public defender
After law school, Ms. Smith began work as an assistant public defender with the Defender Association of Philadelphia. He then worked as a member of the Special Defense Unit, and Senior Court Prosecutor. While working as a public defender in Philadelphia, Smith began work as a law professor, teaching criminal law at City University of New York Law School.
Professor of law
In 1990, Smith moved to Harvard Law School where he was Deputy Director of the Criminal Justice Institute, a clinical instructor at the HLS criminal defense clinic, and a law professor at Harvard's Trial Advocacy Workshop. The Criminal Justice Institute is a curriculum-based criminal law program from Harvard Law School.
Smith joined Georgetown Law Law Center faculty in 1996. Professor Smith is the Director of Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy (CDPAC) Clinic.
From 1994-2005, Smith was a lawyer for Patsy Kelly Jarrett. Over the years, Smith contacted journalists, public relations firms, and wrote about Kelly in the legal journals. In 2003, Smith convinced a documentary Ofra Bikel - who was working on a film about a guilty plea for the PBS Frontline television show - to include Jarrett in the documentary. The documentary premiered in 2004. During a March 2005 case review, New York Liberation Council members watched Bikel's story about Jarrett's story, and he was released. Case of a Lifetime is a finalist at the 21 Lambda Literary Awards for best lesbian biographies.
In 2010, he was elected to the US Criminal Lawyers Council. He is also on board at the Bronx defender, and the National Youth Defender Center. In 2012, he is the recipient of the Law of Law Award from New York University Law School. In 2015, Smith praised his friend and colleague, Monroe Freedman.
Writing & amp; _commentary comment
Professor Smith writes and comments on criminal defense, the criminal justice system, criminal prosecution, legal ethics, and juvenile justice. His scholarship has been quoted in various opinions. In Country v. Citizens , the Louisiana Supreme Court quotes its scholars about the right of the indigent defendant to obtain the advice designated under Gideon v. Wainwright .
Criminal defense
Professor Smith writes about representing unpopular clients. He wrote an opinion article in the Washington Post entitled, "What motivates lawyers to defend Tsarnaev, Castro, or Zimmerman?" Smith co-edited How Can You Represent The People That? with Monroe Freedman. In the book - a collection of essays - criminal defense lawyers and others share stories of what it's like to defend people accused of crimes ranging from the usual to the horrible. In an article about Judy Clarke and representing an unpopular client, she says: "Criminal defense is a unique type of calling - it does not sound magnificent - it takes an odd heart setting, mindset to do the job for a career." He continued, "We stand behind those who are often reviled. " He discusses why lawyers defend monsters on MSNBC.
In Too Much Heart and Not Enough Heat: Short Life and Fragile Ego from Empathic, Heroic Public Defender, Smith writes about how one can sustain a career in poor criminal defense. To do this, Smith recommends to honor clients, passion for professional craft from defense attorneys, and a sense of anger about the system. Smith writes about two former Prettyman colleagues who left behind a poor criminal defense. Smith rejects Charles Ogletree's paradigm of the public defender as an empathetic hero.
In The Bounds of Zeal in Criminal Defense: Some Thoughts on Lynne Stewart, Smith discussed the behavior that led to the prosecution of Lynne Stewart and her approach to lawyers in general. Smith examined whether Stewart's view of enthusiasm and devotion was against the prevailing ethical and ethical defense. Smith was troubled when the government criminally sued members of the defense bar, especially when he went after a lawyer representing an unpopular client.
Attorney
Smith often writes about prosecutors. In Is the Prosecutor Born or Made ?, Smith writes about his meeting with the prosecutor and innumerable conversations during his thirty years of criminal law practice. In Can You Be a Good Person and a Good Attorney ?, Smith checks the prosecution morality. First, it explores the context of criminal law in the millennium and what it means to try in its current state. Then, he discusses whether it is possible to do "good" in this context - that is, whether a good-intentioned prosecutor can perpetuate the bitter reality of the criminal justice system - given the institutional and cultural pressures of the prosecutor's office. Smith concluded by answering the question posed: he hoped so, but did not think.
In Call to Abolish the Peremptory Challenges by the Prosecutor, Smith argues that the court must admit to not having the power of law Batson v. Kentucky , the striking US Supreme Court case prohibiting prosecutors from jurying criminal cases only on the basis of race, and acknowledging that the only way to end this harmful practice leading to a less diversified jury is to abolish peremptory challenge by prosecutors.
Books
- How Can You Represent The People? (Abbe Smith & Monroe Freedman eds., New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2013).
- Abbe Smith & amp; Monroe Freedman, Understanding the Ethics of Lawyers (New Providence, N.J.: LexisNexis 4th ed. 2010).
- Lifelong Case: Criminal Defense Attorney's Story (New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2008).
References
External links
- Appearance in C-SPAN
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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