Editor:
Ama N. Appiah is an immigration Attorney and advocate based in St.Petersburg, FL. She has also practiced and advocated as a volunteer on behalf of children who have been abused, abandoned, and neglected. In addition to immigration, her current practice includes the areas of civil and criminal appeals, and creative arts and entertainment law. Ms. Appiah's immigration cases have included representing clients that were victims of domestic violence and other crimes, clients that have endured consulate processing to obtain visas to the U.S., clients seeking lawful permanent residence, citizenship, adjustment from asylum, and overstayed visas. She has been a Special Assistant Public Defender for the Tenth Judicial Public Defender's Office Appeals Division, in Bartow, FL.
Authors/Contributors:
Jorge L. Barón has served as the Executive Director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP) since April 2008, having previously worked as a Staff Attorney with the organization for two years. NWIRP is a nationally-recognized legal services organization dedicated solely to advancing and defending the rights of low-income immigrants and refugees. Jorge's passion in advocating on behalf of immigrant and refugees is firmly rooted in his own immigrant experience: he is originally from Bogotá, Colombia, and immigrated to the United States at the age of thirteen. Jorge graduated from Duke University and spent five years working in the film and television industry in Los Angeles, California, before pursuing a legal career. Jorge received his law degree from Yale Law School. After graduation, he served as a law clerk for Judge Betty B. Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Seattle. Jorge then served as an Arthur Liman Public Interest Fellow at New Haven Legal Assistance Association in New Haven, Connecticut, before moving back to the Pacific Northwest and starting his position at NWIRP.
Virginia Benmaman, Ph.D. is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the College of Charleston, Charleston, SC. She developed the first and only Master of Arts Program in Bilingual Legal Interpreting in 1995 and served as its director until her recent retirement. She has been a federally certified judiciary interpreter since 1981 and certified by the American Translators Association (ATA) for Spanish-English translation since 1988. Virginia has published extensively on interpreter related issues, including the popular Bilingual Dictionary of Criminal Justice Terms (co-authored) and the Bilingual Handbook for Public Safety Professionals. She has presented scholarly papers at national and international conferences and has served as consultant and evaluator on a number of interpreter related projects throughout the U.S.
James G. Connell, III is a Partner in Connell, Sheldon & Flood, P.L.C, in Fairfax, Virginia, where he handles criminal defense and habeas corpus cases. He has previously served as an Assistant Public Defender in Fairfax, Virginia, and Research & Writing Specialist at the Federal Public Defender for Nevada. James' publications include coauthoring "Search and Seizure Protections for Undocumented Aliens: The Territoriality and Voluntary Presence Principles of the Forth Amendment" in Georgetown University's American Criminal Law Review. James was editor-in-chief of the William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law. James is the co-editor of Cultural Issues in Criminal Defense (1st ed. 2000).
Tracy Dreispul is an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the Appellate Division of the Federal Public Defender's Office for the Southern District of Florida. She previously worked as an AFPD in the Middle District of Florida in both the trial and appellate divisions, and as a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York. Ms. Dreispul began her career by serving as a law clerk to the Honorable William L. Garwood, Senior Circuit Judge, on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She received her B.A. and J.D., both with High Honors, from the University of Florida.
Hanni Fakhoury focuses on criminal law, privacy and free speech litigation and advocacy. He's written numerous amicus briefs in state and federal courts throughout the country on electronic searches and cybercrime, and his writings have been published in the New York Times, Wired, Slate and JURIST. Hanni has testified before the California state legislature on proposed electronic privacy legislation, is a sought after speaker at legal seminars and conferences, and has given formal and informal advice to other lawyers on electronic surveillance in criminal cases. Before joining EFF, Hanni worked as a federal public defender in San Diego where he handled all aspects of criminal litigation including trial and appeal. He still represents federal criminal defendants on appeal as a member of the Northern District of California's Criminal Justice Act panel. Hanni graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in political science and an honors degree in history. He received his law degree with distinction from Pacific McGeorge School of Law, where he was elected to the Order of Barristers for his excellence in written and oral advocacy.
Jack E. Fernandez is a Partner at Zuckerman Spaeder LLP. He advises clients in high-stakes civil and criminal litigation, principally in the health care and government contracting industries. He has tried and won dozens of criminal jury and non-jury trials in federal court, and has argued and won numerous civil and criminal appeals in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Additionally, Mr. Fernandez has litigated a multitude of state and federal civil cases. He has advised and represented business entities, hospitals, nursing home chains, law firms, lawyers, judges, corporate officers and directors, and many individuals. He has been recognized in numerous industry rankings, including Chambers USA, The Best Lawyers in America, Benchmark Litigation, and Florida Trend's "Legal Elite." Before entering private practice, Mr. Fernandez served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, where he investigated, tried, and argued appeals in numerous complex federal cases, including health care fraud, the Federal False Claims Act (qui tam), defense contractor fraud, tax fraud, securities fraud, satellite signal piracy, and intellectual property cases. He was one of the founding members of the U.S. Attorney's Health Care Fraud Task Force for the Middle District of Florida. Following law school, he served as a law clerk for the Hon. J. Dickson Phillips of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Isabel Framer is the Founder and Principal Partner of Language Access Consultants, LLC. Since 1996, she has worked as a consultant to defense attorneys, prosecutors, law enforcement, state and federal government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice, and advocacy firms on language access for Limited English Proficient (LEP) persons in the legal system. She is a state court-certified judiciary interpreter and has been qualified as an expert witness in court proceedings regarding language access and interpreter standards. Isabel has served on several boards and advisory committees, including the Supreme Court of Ohio's Advisory Committee on Interpreter Services and as Chair of the Rules and Policies Subcommittee, on the Interpreter Services Subcommittee of the Supreme Court of Ohio Racial Fairness Commission, as Co-chair of the Summit/Lorain Law Enforcement LEP Project and as Chair of the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (NAJIT). She is a lead consultant for the Asian and Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence (API Institute), a national resource center on domestic violence, sexual violence, trafficking, and other forms of gender-based violence in Asian and Pacific Islander communities, helping to train attorneys, advocates and interpreters on interpretation issues for domestic violence victims. Appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the US Senate, Isabel currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the State Justice Institute (SJI).
Tova Indritz is a criminal defense Lawyer in private practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her practice consists of federal and state criminal trials, appeals, and post-conviction petitions around the country, and she has some practice in Indian tribal courts as well. The 1993 winner of the Driscoll Award, the highest honor of the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, and the 1990 Albuquerque Bar Association Outstanding Lawyer of the Year award, she is currently on the board of the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, and the New Mexico Innocence and Justice Project. New Mexico's Best Lawyers named her the best white collar criminal defense lawyer in the state for 2011. For several years now she has been listed as one of the best lawyers for both white-collar and nonwhite collar criminal defense in New Mexico. She graduated from Yale Law School, earned a Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree from the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and a Bachelor of Arts degree, Phi Beta Kappa, from The George Washington University. She has special interests in Native American criminal law and in the confluence of criminal law and immigration law and the issues a criminal defense lawyer must consider in representing a non-U.S. citizen; she has spoken around the country about the immigration consequences of criminal convictions and authored a book chapter on that topic, published in each of the prior editions of this book Cultural Issues in Criminal Defense (2010, 2007, and 2000). She represented the three amicus curiae, New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, New Mexico Civil Liberties Foundation (litigation arm of the ACLU of New Mexico), and National Immigration Project, in briefing and argument in State v. Paredez, 136 N.M. 533, 101 P.3d 799 (2004), cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Padilla v. Kentucky, which held that the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel included the obligation to determine if a client is a U.S. citizen and to inform a non-citizen client of the specific immigration consequences of criminal charges. She is the chair of the Immigration Committee and co-chair of the Native American Justice Committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She was an Assistant Federal Public Defender for the District of New Mexico for 5 years and then the Federal Public Defender for the District of New Mexico for another 13 years, until beginning private practice in 1995.
Kathlyn M. Mackovjak has been practicing immigration law for over 10 years. She was a supervising Attorney of the immigration unit at a legal aid organization for many years where she focused on the issues of human trafficking, immigrant victims of crime and unlawful detention of immigrants in the U.S. Ms. Mackovjak was also an adjunct professor at Stetson Law School and coordinated and taught an immigration law clinic for law students from 2006-2013. She has an undergraduate degree in environmental engineering from the University of Florida, and graduated cum laude from the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, DC. In the early 1990s she was a volunteer with the Peace Corps in Mali, West Africa. She then worked as an environmental engineer for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Rwanda, Angola, the Republic of Congo, Kosovo and Afghanistan. She is now a principal and shareholder at Immigration Law Group of Florida, P.A. She is licensed to practice law in New York and Florida.
Timothy P. O'Toole counsels and defends individuals and companies in white collar criminal matters, conducts internal corporate investigations, and represents potential witnesses and targets in government investigations. He has significant experience handling matters involving export controls, embargo, criminal tax, bribery, public corruption, conspiracy, false representations to government agencies, obstruction of justice, and fraud. Mr. O'Toole also handles complex litigation arising under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). His ERISA practice spans a broad spectrum, including fiduciary litigation, pre-emption matters, and cases arising under Title IV. He has represented plan sponsors in benefits litigation and has particular experience in defending breach of fiduciary duty claims. Mr. O'Toole also currently represents a number of retiree organizations in challenges to the manner in which the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) has handled the termination of their pension plans and administered their pension benefits. Mr. O'Toole is experienced in handling criminal and civil appeals, having presented more than 25 appellate arguments in the state and federal courts, and represented parties and amici curiae before the United States Supreme Court in a Fourth Amendment case (Hudson v. Michigan), cases involving the Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses (Briscoe v. Virginia; Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts; Davis v. Washington; and Hammon v. Indiana), and cases involving federal court jurisdiction (Slack v. McDaniel; Whorton v. Bockting; Muhammad v. Close; and Rumsfeld v. Padilla). Prior to joining Miller & Chevalier, Mr. O'Toole served as the Chief of the Special Litigation Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where he supervised and handled complex cases in the local and federal courts. He is a former Assistant Federal Public Defender in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he represented people under sentence of death in federal proceedings.
George Scott is a retired IRS Criminal Investigations Manager, currently working as a Private Investigator in Tampa, Florida and as a consultant to several tax firms in Tampa and across the United States. He specializes in white collar criminal investigations such as tax fraud,bank fraud, and health care fraud, as well as complex drug investigations. His experience in locating witnesses and conducting interviews and analyzing voluminous documents has been invaluable in these types of cases, as well as other cases, including murder, investor fraud, etc. His expertise was particularly helpful in identifying and locating witnesses and key defense documents in Colombia that could subsequently be used in federal court.
Azadeh Shahshahani serves as President of the National Lawyers Guild. She previously served as Director of the ACLU of Georgia's National Security/Immigrants' Rights Project. She is the author or editor of several human rights reports, including a 2012 report titled: "Prisons of Profits: Immigrants and Detention in Georgia," as well as law review articles and book chapters including a 2013 article published by the Hastings Race & Poverty Law Journal titled "Shattered Dreams: An Analysis of the Georgia Board of Regents' Admissions Ban from a Constitutional and International Human Rights Perspective." Shahshahani is a 2004 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. She also has a Master's in Modern Middle Eastern and North African Studies from the University of Michigan. She is the recipient of the American Immigration Lawyers Association 2012 Advocacy Award and the University of Georgia Law School 2009 Equal Justice Foundation Public Interest Practitioner Award.
Fredilyn Sison is an honors graduate of Cornell University and New York University School of Law. Currently an Assistant Federal Defender at the Federal Defenders of Western North Carolina in Asheville, she has served as an AFD in the Districts of Idaho, Nebraska, and Nevada, as well as visiting counsel at the Defender Training Branch and at the U.S. Sentencing Commission in Washington, D.C. She has authored articles on jury selection, cross examination and the effects of incarceration on families for national journals. She is on the faculty of various trial and sentencing advocacy programs and has spoken on a variety of criminal law topics at seminars. She is a certified practitioner in psychodrama and sociometry, and her interests include reading, piano, yoga, rowing/kayaking and Improv.
Margaret van Naerssen, Ph.D. in applied linguistics/language acquisition (University of Southern California), coordinates graduate level teacher training in cultural and linguistic diversity at Immaculata University (Pennsylvania). She is also occasionally an English language specialist overseas with the US Department of State. Since 1997 she's done expert consultant/witness work in forensic linguistics at federal and state levels, in criminal and civil cases involving murder, rape, drugs, money laundering, robbery, fraud, contract and plain language guidelines, slander, medical malpractice, and interpreting issues. Most cases involve non-native speakers of English. She's given presentations on forensic linguistics at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. and the FBI Academy as well as at professional conferences, including the 2013 PA State Trial Judges Conference, and in a continuing legal education program. She's published in the areas of language proficiency and evidence.
Mark Warren, a human rights researcher and legal consultant based in Ottawa, Canada, specializes in the application of international law to domestic criminal cases. He is the author of several instruction manuals for consular officers and for attorneys representing foreign nationals facing capital charges. His other recent publications include articles in the Hofstra Law Review and the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal. Mark was a member of Mexico's legal team in its successful lawsuit against the United States at the International Court of Justice, which addressed consular rights violations in the cases of over 50 death-sentenced Mexican nationals.
Chris Westmoreland is a criminal defense Lawyer of fourteen years based in Clearwater, Florida. He attended the College of Law at Georgia State University on a full tuition fellowship where he worked his final two years as a graduate research assistant for the Consortium on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution and interned at the Department of Justice in the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Chris began his legal career as a prosecutor in metro Atlanta, and after six years of solo practice in criminal defense, he moved to the Tampa Bay area and opened an office in 2008. Since joining the defense bar in 2001, he has represented Spanish-speaking clients almost exclusively. Chris was a medical translator for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, and is fluent in Spanish and conversationally proficient in Portuguese.
"Cultural Issues in Criminal Defense assembles a uniquely helpful collection of articles to assist defense counsel in navigating these waters. Particularly helpful is the way the book breaks down the cultural matters at issue according to each stage of trial and according to the substantive crimes commonly charged against immigrants. Separate chapters on jury selection, voir dire, sentencing, and appeal make for easy reference. And chapters covering illegal entry and international drug interdiction cases are key resources for defense counsel who regularly handle these matters. Upon reviewing Cultural Issues in Criminal Defense, my initial reaction was, 'Why didn't I have this book when I was an Assistant Federal Public Defender?!' I highly recommend this book, particularly for those who practice in federal court or frequently represent immigrants in state criminal proceedings. It will be an incredibly useful tool for effectively representing your clients."
--Mark P. Rankin, Partner, Shutts & Bowen LLB, Co-Chair of the NACDL Sentencing Committee
"This book is a great resource for lawyers representing foreigners charged with crimes, especially in the United States. The book is an excellent reference for practitioners, criminal justice professionals, and professionals working in comparative and international criminal law. An advantage of the book is that, in addition to describing the issues arising under each of the topics, it provides very practical advice on how to deal with the various areas and subareas."
--Bruce Zagaris, Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe LLP, Washington, DC
"I have the pleasure of serving as a Consulting Attorney for the Mexican Consulate in Orlando, Florida, and I found the book to be a tremendous resource in criminal cases, including representing a Mexican national in a collateral appeal intending to set aside a judgment and sentence of 25 years for deficient representation at trial. The book should be on the bookshelf of everyone interested in criminal law. It offers powerful tools for the practitioner."
--Diego Handel, Daytona Beach, Florida
"I am currently a supervising attorney with the Office of the Public Defender in Montgomery County, Maryland and have worked in that capacity for nine years. Prior to that I was in private practice for twenty-seven years. During the time that I have practiced law, I have never encountered a book like Cultural Issues in Criminal Defense which addresses so many issues involved in the representation of multicultural clients. I don't believe any lawyer who practices criminal law should be without this book."
--Alan C. Drew, Assistant Public Defender, Rockville, Maryland
"It is a 'must have' for the criminal defense lawyer whose practice involves representing people of other cultures and languages or handling cases with foreign law issues. This unique book serves as a valuable reference to both the new and experienced practitioner. No advocate should be without it in his or her library."
--The Champion, Journal of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, (NADL)
"I have been a student of the Fourth Amendment since 1971 when I took criminal procedure back in what was the Fourth Amendment's "stone age." For 30 years now, I've been seeking to understand the tao of the Fourth Amendment. Understanding is everything, and one will find a significant aid in Cultural Issues in Criminal Defense, How does a citizen of Mexico or any other country understand police-citizen relationships? Courts assume that our own citizens do, when, for example, consent to search or talk with the police is an issue, but we clearly do not. It is purely legal fiction. When a person from another culture is in the hands of the police, they are even more lost and clueless than our own citizens, and our duty as criminal defense lawyers is to expose why people do not understand what is happening when they consent to a search or talk to the police. This book will greatly aid us in that duty."
--John Wesley Hall, Past President National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NADL)
"Cultural Issues in Criminal Defense will not gather dust on any criminal defense attorney's shelf. It provides ideas, angles, and insights that will greatly assist any criminal defense attorney -- and perhaps any other attorney -- who faces the daunting task of guiding a person from another culture, nationality, or ethnic background through the American legal system."
--Lori Seppi, Utah Bar Journal
