Stanford Law School Criminal Defense Clinic

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The Stanford Law School Criminal Defense Clinic is one of the eleven Mills Legal Clinics at Stanford Law School. Founded in 2006, it provides legal representation to convicts serving life sentences under California's three strikes law for committing minor, non-violent felonies. Under the supervision of clinic instructors, students represent clients in both federal and state court. The Clinic is directed by attorneys Michael Romano and Galit Lipa.

In order to secure the release of its clients, the Clinic pursues resentencing hearings or constitutional challenges to the sentences imposed, either by direct appeal or post-conviction habeas petitions. Typical claims include ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment, cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, and resentencing petitions under People v. Superior Court (Romero), 13 Cal.4th 497 (1996), and People v. Williams, 17 Cal.4th 148 (1998). Clinic students work in two-person teams representing a single client, visiting the client in prison, conducting factual investigations throughout California, and drafting court pleadings and briefs.

Despite facing difficult legal terrain under Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11 (2003), and Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003), in which the United States Supreme Court effectively foreclosed relief for the disproportionality of third-strike sentences under the federal Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, the Clinic has been largely successful. To date, it has won the reversal or resentencing of thirteen life sentences.[1] Previous clients had been sentenced to life in prison for minor crimes such as possession of less than a gram of narcotics, stealing a dollar's worth of change from a car, writing bad checks, and stealing tools from a tow truck.

The Clinic has been featured in stories by the New York Times Magazine[2], the Los Angeles Times[3][4], The Economist[5], and the BBC.[6]

References

  1. ^ "Criminal Defense Clinic Success Stories".
  2. ^ "Arguing Three Strikes". New York Times Magazine.
  3. ^ "Law students help free three-strikes offenders". Los Angeles Times.
  4. ^ "Three strikes sanity". Los Angeles Times.
  5. ^ "Criminal law in California". The Economist.
  6. ^ "Assignment: Three Strike Lifers". BBC.

External links

See also

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