Please be advised that registration for all Training Division Events is limited to persons who provide services pursuant to the Federal Criminal Justice Act (CJA). For more information please read our Training Events Registration Disclaimer. Continuing Legal Education (CLE) accreditation for DSO Training Division Programs will be requested unless otherwise noted. Program Credit hours will always be subject to each state's approval and credit rounding rules. Approved programs and credit hours will be made available at the conclusion of applicable programs.
For CLE information and available resources pertaining to your state, please visit the CLE Information Center.
If you have any questions about registering, please emailus.
Dec 31
Writing Effective Sentencing Memoranda
Writing Effective Sentencing Memoranda
Fritz Scheller, Fritz Scheller P.L., Orlando, FL
The importance of clear and concise written advocacy in federal criminal proceedings cannot be overestimated, especially for sentencing. This on demand video will cover the principles of crafting a persuasive and fact-driven sentencing memorandum that tells your client’s story and individualizes them, instead of an argument that reads like a law review article.
17
Criminal Justice Act 60th Anniversary Commemoration
On Monday August 19, 2024, the Defender Services Office, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, commemorated the 60th Anniversary of the Criminal Justice Act in Washington D.C. A video recording of the live event can be found here.
The commemoration included welcome and introductory remarks from Elizabeth Brown Luck, Chief, Defender Services Office, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Judge Robert J. Conrad, Director, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, provided opening remarks for the celebration. Judge Judith Levy of the U.S. District Court, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Attorney Jarrett Adams, Esq., of Jarrett Adams Law in Chicago, Illinois, also provided remarks on the importance of the Criminal Justice Act and the right to counsel pursuant to the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution.The commemoration concluded with a panel comprised of: moderator, Federal Public Defender for the District of Minnesota, Katherian Roe; the Honorable Edward Prado, U.S. Ambassador to Argentina and distinguished federal jurist in the U.S. Courts for approximately 35 years; and, Judge Kathleen Cardone, U.S. District Court, El Paso, Texas. The panel focused on two committee reports tasked with reviewing the Criminal Justice Act.
8
Unlocking the Sentencing Guidelines, A Virtual Series: Session 6 – An Overview of the 2024 Guideline Amendments
This webinar will provide an overview of the 2024 Sentencing Guideline Amendments, which will go into effect on November 1, 2024, absent congressional action to the contrary. We will review the guideline amendments and brainstorm strategies for sentencing advocacy in light of the amendments. By the end of the session, participants should understand the sentencing guideline amendment process; be familiar with the 2024 guideline amendments; and be able to identify related strategies for success at sentencing.
Presenters:
Tina Woehr, Texas-born and Tucson-based, is an attorney with the National Sentencing Resource Counsel Project. Before she joined SRC, Tina was an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the District of Arizona and the Southern District of Texas. Prior to that she was an associate with the New York office of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Tina received their J.D. from Columbia Law School, and a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.
Leslie E. Scott is an attorney with the National Sentencing Resource Counsel, where she represents Federal Defenders’ interests before the United States Sentencing Commission, trains Defenders and CJA panel attorneys nationwide on federal sentencing issues, and provides sentencing litigation support. Leslie earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and her law degree from American University, Washington College of Law. After law school, Leslie clerked on the D.C. Court of Appeals and the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. From there, she served as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the Western District of New York. She also taught evidence and criminal law-related courses at Detroit Mercy School of Law and has authored several law review articles, an amicus brief, and a textbook chapter on sentencing and drug law and policy. She is based in Detroit, Michigan.
CLE Information:
We have applied for CLE accreditation in states that have mandatory requirements. We regret that we cannot respond to telephone inquiries regarding the status of CLE approval prior to the webinar. All information related to CLE will be emailed to attendees within 15-30 days following the program.
- To minimize reporting fees per attorney/program, if you are barred in more than one of the following states NM, TN, PA, NE, attendance will be reported to one state only.
- The attorney is responsible for making sure the appropriate state and bar number is on file with the DSO Training Division.
- For applicable states, attendance will be reported using the bar number and state(s) listed on the registration form submitted for this program.
- Failure to provide the state and bar number may result in the Training Division not being able to report your attendance.
16
Championing Pretrial Release With the PTRA
This webinar will train you to advocate for your clients’ release using the Pretrial Risk Assessment score (PTRA). Professor Alison Siegler will describe how we can use the PTRA to demonstrate that every single client presents a very low risk of failure-to-appear and a very low risk of reoffending, making the PTRA an unexpectedly strong resource for our pretrial release advocacy. In this webinar, you will learn how to argue the PTRA score during your detention hearings, how to rebut the government’s efforts to minimize the PTRA’s predictions, and how the PTRA can be an evidence-based tool for convincing judges to release more people on bond. The presentation (50 minutes) will be followed by a Q&A session (10 minutes).
Presenter:
Alison Siegler is the Founding Director of the Federal Criminal Justice Clinic (FCJC) at the University of Chicago Law School, the first legal clinic devoted to representing indigent clients charged with federal felonies, pursuing impact litigation in federal court, and engaging in systemic reform of the federal criminal system. Professor Siegler’s clinic recently published the first comprehensive national investigation of federal pretrial detention, Freedom Denied: How the Culture of Detention Created a Federal Jailing Crisis. Professor Siegler has also testified before Congress about the need for federal bond reform and also trained hundreds of federal magistrate judges, hundreds of Pretrial Services Officers, and thousands of AFDs and CJA lawyers on the Bail Reform Act. Professor Siegler’s clinic previously garnered national recognition for its contributions to groundbreaking federal racial discrimination impact litigation in federal “stash house” cases. Before founding the FCJC, Professor Siegler served as a Staff Attorney with the Federal Defender Program in Chicago, a Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center’s Criminal Justice Clinic, and a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman in Chicago. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale College, earned a J.D. from Yale Law School, and holds an LL.M. from Georgetown.
CLE Information:
We have applied for CLE accreditation in states that have mandatory requirements. We regret that we cannot respond to telephone inquiries regarding the status of CLE approval prior to the webinar. All information related to CLE will be emailed to attendees within 15-30 days following the program.
- To minimize reporting fees per attorney/program, if you are barred in more than one of the following states NM, TN, PA, NE, attendance will be reported to one state only.
- The attorney is responsible for making sure the appropriate state and bar number is on file with the DSO Training Division.
- For applicable states, attendance will be reported using the bar number and state(s) listed on the registration form submitted for this program.
- Failure to provide the state and bar number may result in the Training Division not being able to report your attendance.
20
Unlocking the Sentencing Guidelines, A Virtual Series: Session 3 - Calculating Guidelines in Drug Cases
Unlocking the Sentencing Guidelines: A Virtual Series is a comprehensive examination of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Monthly webinars will examine topics in Chapter One on relevant conduct; in Chapter Two on guideline calculations for drug offenses, firearm offenses, immigration offenses, sex offenses, and economic crime offenses; in Chapter Three on adjustments and grouping; in Chapter Four on criminal history calculations and career offender/categorical approach problems; in Chapters Five and Seven on imposition and violations of probation/supervised release; on recent guideline amendments and trending sentencing guideline issues; on the effective use of data and resources in deconstructing the guidelines; and, finally, on the importance of injecting the clients' stories to move away from a rigid application of the guidelines, particularly when the guidelines provide too harsh a sentence.
Session 3 - Calculating Guidelines in Drug Cases
Drug trafficking, distribution, and conspiracy cases are some of the most commonly prosecuted federal offenses. As defense practitioners, we are compelled to be experts on the fundamentals and nuances of USSG §2D1.1. This session addresses how to calculate drug base offense levels: looking to the type and quantity of drugs in the offense; combining drug quantities when different controlled substances are involved; defining both serious bodily injury and “prior conviction for a felony drug offense” and the impact they may have; and examining the effect that a mitigating role adjustment can have on the base offense level. We also explore some of the most common specific offense characteristics, such as whether a dangerous weapon was possessed and whether violence was used or threatened. Finally, we will cover the legal and factual standards for guideline application, significant case law interpreting this guideline, drug purity issues, the concepts of relevant conduct and jointly undertaken criminal activity, the interplay of this guideline with safety valve, new litigation trends, and effective litigation strategies.
Presenter: Joseph Camden is an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the Richmond office of the Eastern District of Virginia. Before coming to Richmond in 2017, he spent seven years as a trial attorney at Federal Defenders of San Diego, Inc., where he focused on litigating illegal reentry cases and categorical approach issues. And before that, he spent a couple years teaching English in Siberia.
CLE Information:
We have applied for CLE accreditation in states that have mandatory requirements. We regret that we cannot respond to telephone inquiries regarding the status of CLE approval prior to the webinar. All information related to CLE will be emailed to attendees within 15-30 days following the program.
- To minimize reporting fees per attorney/program, if you are barred in more than one of the following states NM, TN, PA, NE, attendance will be reported to one state only.
- The attorney is responsible for making sure the appropriate state and bar number is on file with the DSO Training Division.
- For applicable states, attendance will be reported using the bar number and state(s) listed on the registration form submitted for this program.
- Failure to provide the state and bar number may result in the Training Division not being able to report your attendance.
Dec 21
Representing Juveniles in Federal Court
Representing Juveniles in Federal Court
Rachel Julagay, Executive Director for the Federal Defenders of Montana, Great Falls, MT
David F. Ness, Assistant Federal Defender, D. of Montana, Great Falls, MT
Representing a young person charged with an act of juvenile delinquency in federal court presents both unique challenges and unique opportunities for defense counsel. Juvenile cases differ markedly from adult prosecutions. The federal Juvenile Delinquency Act (JDA) provides the exclusive means for the prosecution of juveniles in federal court for violations of federal criminal law. This on demand video is designed to provide federal defenders and CJA panel attorneys an overview of key provisions of the JDA, and an anatomy of a federal juvenile case from arrest through initial appearance, pretrial release and detention, speedy trial, motions hearing, disposition and transfer.
23 - 25
Bail Boot Camp Workshop
Three out of every four federal criminal defendants in the United States are held in pretrial detention, despite a presumption of innocence. Shocked? A high majority of the people held are of color. Outraged? One reason for this high rate of pretrial detention involves a misunderstanding and misapplication by the parties – the court, the prosecution, probation, and yes, the defense – of the Bail Reform Act (BRA). Appalled? The failure of the parties to adhere to the Bail Reform Act and the lack of zealous advocacy at the initial appearance and detention hearings have led to a crisis within the federal bail system – a crisis that has caused detrimental, and in many cases, irreversible negative consequences to the clients we represent.
The Bail Boot Camp is a skills-based workshop designed to change the system. Using a combination of lectures, demonstrations, and small group exercises, participants will learn the tools necessary to zealously defend their clients in the context of initial appearances and detention hearings.
Registration will be limited to 60 CJA Panel Attorneys and Federal Defender attorneys. Limited financial assistance may be available to CJA Panel Attorneys.
CLE & CIN
We have applied for CLE accreditation in states that have mandatory requirements. We regret that we cannot respond to telephone inquiries regarding the status of CLE approval prior to the workshop. All information related to CLE will be emailed to attendees within 15-30 days following the program.
* In an effort to minimize reporting fees per attorney/program, if you are barred in more than one of the following states NM, TN, PA, NE, attendance will be reported to one state only. The attorney is responsible for making sure the appropriate state and bar number is on file with the DSO Training Division.
* For applicable states, attendance will be reported using the bar number and state(s) listed on the registration form submitted for this program.
* Failure to provide the state and bar number may result in the Training Division not being able to report your attendance.
For those attending from FPDOs, the Conference Identification Number (CIN) for this workshop is CONF250016.
Registration
We expect registration for this workshop to open in October 2024.
Mar 31
Gun Cases and the Art of War
On Demand Video: Gun Cases and the Art of War
Dumaka Shabazz, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville, TN
This on demand video explore various strategies and practical tips for defending a firearms case. Dumaka Shabazz discusses issues ranging from initial investigations, knowledge of firearms, pretrial strategies, negotiations, and trial defenses. For illustrative purposes, Shabazz analyzes different fact patterns and discusses how to proceed at each stage of representation. This session was recorded in June of 2023.