Professors Will Hellerstein (second row, left) and Daniel Medwed (second row, right) with their dedicated students.

This year, Brooklyn Law School’s top-rated clinical program expanded its offerings with two new clinics. Both the Second Look Program and The Prosecutors Clinic: United States Attorney’s Office augment an already rich set of offerings in the criminal practice area. In keeping with the philosophy and pedagogy of the clinical program, they give students an opportunity to learn legal principles and procedures in the context of real cases and clients. “We are fortunate to be able to provide clinical opportunities that allow students to see the criminal justice system from so many different perspectives, and to act as responsible advocates when such important issues are at stake,” says Professor Stacy Caplow, Director of the Law School’s Clinical Program. “In addition, we are delighted to welcome four new teachers to our already outstanding clinical faculty.”

Second Look Program: Last Chance for Innocent Inmates
The mission of the “Second Look Program” is daunting: to free innocent prisoners whose appellate remedies have run their course. The clinic’s mandate is to review the cases of New York State prisoners who assert their innocence and whose cases do not require the use of DNA testing. The clinic fills a desperate need, since there are no other programs in New York City that focus exclusively on non-DNA innocence cases. It has already received over 300 requests for help. These cases, which generally involve erroneous eyewitness identification, false confessions, ineffective counsel, and police and prosecutorial misconduct, are believed to be the hardest to “crack,” because generally they do not turn on scientific proof but on newly discovered evidence secured through extensive legwork.

Professors William E. Hellerstein and Daniel S. Medwed, the architects of this new clinic, are ideal faculty to instruct and serve as mentors to the students in this program. Hellerstein headed the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Appeals Bureau for 16 years, and founded the Society’s Prisoners’ Rights Project in 1971. Medwed, too, has strong experience with criminal appeals work, having served with the Criminal Appeals Bureau as Associate Appellate Counsel. Additionally, within the last year and a half, Hellerstein’s pro bono efforts helped secure the freedom of former Golden Gloves boxer Gerald Harris, an innocent man who was wrongly imprisoned for 8 1/2 years. This much-publicized case was the main inspiration for starting a clinic at the Law School so that student resources could be put to use working on additional cases.

Under the supervision of Hellerstein and Medwed, eight students work in teams of two evaluating the innocence claims. Specifically, each team is assigned to a case that the clinic is actively investigating, and each student also screens requests for assistance by inmates. The screening process may involve legal research, conducting field investigations – speaking to investigators, former witnesses, and jury members –, reviewing appellate briefs and trial transcripts (which may mean reading through thousands of pages), editing briefs, and writing memoranda summarizing the salient points of the case. After a claim has been thoroughly reviewed, the students make a recommendation as to whether the case should receive the full representation by the clinic. Medwed gives praise to the students for their “talent, drive and the tremendous judgment they have shown in the screening of cases.”

In the bi-weekly seminars, students learn the substantive and procedural law concerning post-conviction remedies, and receive instruction about the specific investigative and lawyering skills required for pursuing innocence claims to successful resolution. The professors also cover ethical and tactical issues. Equally important are the weekly meetings between Hellerstein and Medwed and the student teams in which the progress of the cases is discussed.

In the short time that the clinic has been in operation, it has already achieved a major victory. Robert F., convicted of murder in the second degree, and incarcerated since 1985 pursuant to a 15 year to life sentence, had always maintained his innocence. Second Look investigated his case, proved that his assertion was genuine, and made an application to the New York State Parole Board for his immediate release. The board agreed, and Robert F. is expected to be released by April. The clinic is continuing to work to overturn the conviction.

The Second Look Program has attracted notice for its work. The New York Community Trust and the Polsky Foundation each awarded $10,000 grants to the clinic, and the Guggenheim Foundation made a $50,000 grant last November. The funding is used to offset expenses for private investigators and other experts, and travel costs to interview prisoners and witnesses.

The Second Look Program currently is investigating four murder cases and one robbery case which raise serious questions about the guilt of the defendants. With roughly 70,000 prisoners in New York’s correctional system, there is no shortage of cases to review. Hellerstein reminds his students... “there is much work to be done in the pursuit of justice.”

New Federal Prosecutors Clinic Opens
Complementing the very successful existing Prosecutors Clinic, in which students work as student Assistant District Attorneys in Kings County, BLS students now have an opportunity to work as student federal prosecutors. The new “Prosecutors Clinic: U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York” is currently the only clinic in the metropolitan area in which law school students are responsible for prosecuting federal cases.

Working under the supervision of Assistant United States Attorneys (AUSAs), eight students represent the government in the investigation and prosecution of misdemeanors and petty offenses in federal court taking primary responsibility for these cases from intake to final disposition. The cases involve crimes on federal property, including matters of child abuse, public lewdness, drug and weapons possession, petit larceny, simple assault, and motor vehicle offenses. The student prosecutors litigate against both retained and appointed defense counsel, most frequently law students from New York University’s Federal Defender Criminal Clinic.

Carolyn Pokorny, a 1994 BLS grad and Eric T. Chaffin, co-teach the seminar component of the clinic. A unique feature of the program is that each of the students has a one-to-one relationship with a mentor, an AUSA who provides counseling on all matters and accompanies the student to court.

During the weekly seminars, Pokorny and Chaffin instruct the students on federal criminal law and procedure, including discovery, Brady material, investigative techniques, negotiation tactics, evidence, and ethics. The students are also taught specific trial skills and strategy, for example, how to conduct a direct and cross examination and to prepare opening and closing arguments. Outside of the classroom, each student has responsibility for several cases in which they learn from their mentors how to conduct investigative interviews of law enforcement and civilian witnesses. Before a Magistrate Judge, the students might be asked to make an oral argument, argue a motion, or handle a suppression hearing. Since so many misdemeanor cases are disposed of by plea, students learn the art of plea negotiations. Each student will have the opportunity to conduct, at a minimum, one trial.