Speaker Lineup
Opening Remarks
- Darcel D. Clark. Bronx District Attorney
Panel 1: “Understanding Coercion: Developments in Neuroscience and Social Sciences”
- Stephen Schulhofer. Professor of Law, NYU School of Law
- Dr. Eric Y. Drogin. Program in Psychiatry and the Law, Harvard Medical School
- Karen Newirth. Senior Staff Attorney, Strategic Litigation Unit, Innocence Project
- Dr. Laura Smalarz. Associate Professor of Psychology, Williams College
Panel 2: “Interrogating Youth: Juvenile Waiver of Miranda Rights”
- Chantá Parker. Special Counsel for New Initiatives, Innocence Project
- Kristin Henning. Director, Juvenile Justice Clinic, Georgetown University Law Center
- Marsha Levick. Director and Chief Counsel, Juvenile Law Center
- Kate Rubin. Director of Policy and Strategic Initiatives, Youth Represent
Panel 3: “State of the Court: The Supreme Court and the Reality of Criminal Justice”
- Ames Grawert. Counsel, Justice Program, Brennan Center for Justice
- Ting Ting Cheng. Staff Attorney, Brooklyn Defender Services
- Timothy Koller. Executive Assistant District Attorney, Richmond County
Closing Remarks
Speaker Bios
Darcel D. Clark
Darcel D. Clark has been the Bronx County District Attorney since January 2016. District Attorney Clark is the first woman to hold the position, and she is the first African-American woman to be a District Attorney in New York State. Before her election, District Attorney Clark spent 16 years as a judge in the New York State courts, most recently as an Associate Justice for the Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department. District Attorney Clark was a prosecutor in the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office from 1986 to 1999, during which time she served as the Supervising ADA of the Narcotics Bureau and Deputy Chief of the Criminal Court Bureau.
Stephen Schulhofer
Previously the Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Director for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago Law School, Stephen Schulhofer is one of the nation’s most distinguished scholars of criminal justice. He has written more than fifty scholarly articles and six books, including the leading casebook in the field and highly regarded, widely cited work on a wide range of criminal justice topics. He has written on police interrogation, the self-incrimination clause, administrative searches, drug enforcement, indigent defense, sentencing reform, plea bargaining, capital punishment, battered spouse syndrome, and many other criminal justice matters. His current projects include an investigation of the growing practice of trying juveniles in adult court and an analysis of recent developments in the Supreme Court’s interpretation of core Fifth Amendment principles.
Dr. Eric Y. Drogin
Eric Y. Drogin is a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Psychology, a Diplomate and former President of the American Board of Forensic Psychology, and a Diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology. Dr. Drogin currently holds faculty appointments with the Harvard Medical School (as a member of the Program in Psychiatry and the Law, and on the staff of the Forensic Psychiatry Service, in the Department of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) and the Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Training Program. Dr. Drogin is also a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. His current American Bar Association roles include Chair of the Behavioral and Neuroscience Law Committee and Chair of the Section of Science & Technology Law. Dr. Drogin’s multidisciplinary practice encompasses mental health law, expert witness testimony, and trial consultation.
Karen Newirth
Karen A. Newirth is the senior staff attorney in the Innocence Project’s strategic litigation unit, where she focuses on the Innocence Project’s law reform efforts around eyewitness identification. Ms. Newirth is a graduate of New York University’s School of Law. Following law school, she clerked for the Honorable Whitman Knapp in the Southern District of New York, after which she was a criminal defense lawyer in private practice. Prior to joining the Innocence Project, Ms. Newirth represented individuals in all phases of state and federal criminal investigations and prosecutions as a senior associate at the law firm of Brafman & Associates, P.C. and as an associate at the law firm of Cleary Gottlieb.
Dr. Laura Smalarz
Dr. Smalarz is a Southern California native who completed her doctorate in Social Psychology at Iowa State University. She spent time in New York City at the Innocence Project prior to accepting an associate professor position at Williams College. Her research involves the application of Psychology to the study of the legal system. In particular, she is interested in eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, and social biases that contribute to and result from wrongful conviction.
Chantá Parker
Chantá Parker is the Special Counsel for New Initiatives at the Innocence Project
where she leads the development of strategies to use the unique lens of innocence to address three problems: racial bias in the criminal justice system; the growing crisis in indigent defense and how this inflated system forces even the innocent to plead guilty to misdemeanors. Prior to joining the Innocence Project, Ms. Parker was a Supervising Attorney in the Criminal Defense Practice of the Legal Aid Society. Ms. Parker also served as a staff attorney with the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and the Orleans Public Defenders. Ms. Parker is a graduate of Spelman College and the New York University School of Law. Currently, Ms. Parker serves on the board of the Law Alumni of Color Association of the NYU School of Law.
Kristin Henning
Professor Henning joined the faculty of the Georgetown Law Center in 1995 as a
Stuart-Stiller Fellow in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Clinics. As a Fellow she represented adults and children in the D.C. Superior Court, while supervising law students in the Juvenile Justice Clinic. In 1997, Professor Henning joined the staff of the Public Defender Service (PDS) for the District of Columbia where she continued to represent clients and helped to organize a Juvenile Unit designed to meet the multi-disciplinary needs of children in the juvenile justice system. Professor Henning served as Lead Attorney for the Juvenile Unit from 1998 until she left the Public Defender Service to return to Georgetown in 2001. As lead attorney, she represented juveniles in serious cases, supervised and trained new PDS attorneys, and coordinated and conducted training for court-appointed
attorneys representing juveniles.
Marsha Levick
Marsha Levick, Deputy Director and Chief Counsel, co-founded Juvenile Law
Center in 1975. Throughout her legal career, Ms. Levick has been an advocate for
children’s and women’s rights and is a nationally recognized expert in juvenile law. Ms. Levick oversees Juvenile Law Center’s litigation and appellate docket. She has successfully litigated challenges to unlawful and harmful laws, policies and practices on behalf of children in both the juvenile justice and child welfare systems. Ms. Levick has authored or co-authored numerous appellate and amicus briefs in state and federal appeals courts throughout the country, including many before the US Supreme Court, and has argued before both state and federal appellate courts in Pennsylvania and numerous other jurisdictions.
Kate Rubin
As Youth Represent’s Director of Policy & Strategic Initiatives, Kate Rubin leads systemic reform campaigns, guides our advocacy strategy, and oversees work developing leadership skills of youth impacted by the criminal justice system. Prior to joining Youth Represent Ms. Rubin worked for ten years at The Bronx Defenders, most recently as Managing Director of the Civil Action Practice. Previously Ms. Rubin served as The Bronx Defenders’ first Director of Policy & Community Development. She led the office’s legislative advocacy activities, developed community partnerships, and created the Bronx Defenders Organizing Project. Before joining The Bronx Defenders, Ms. Rubin worked as Research Associate in the Economic Justice Project at the Brennan Center for Justice, supporting low-wage worker organizing campaigns, and ran education programs for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated youth. She graduated summa cum laude from Cornell University and is an alumna of the Coro Leadership New York program.
Ames Grawert
Ames Grawert is Counsel in the Brennan Center’s Justice Program, and the John L. Neu Justice Counsel. His work seeks to develop an understanding of the cost of America’s criminal justice system — to defendants, inmates, and the nation as a whole — and to translate that information into legal change.Previously, Mr. Grawert served as an assistant district attorney in the Appeals Bureau of the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, where he reviewed and litigated claims of actual innocence in addition to his appellate work. Before entering public service, he was an associate at Mayer Brown LLP, where he represented criminal defendants pro bono in state and federal post-conviction litigation. He uses this experience to examine criminal justice issues from “both sides,” taking into account the interests of prosecutors, police officers, and criminal defendants alike.
Ting Ting Cheng
Ting Ting received her J.D. from the City University of New York School of Law where she was the Public Interest Practice Editor of the New York City Law Review and the Frank Durkan Fellow in Human Rights. Ms. Cheng was a 2009 Fulbright Scholar to South Africa, for which she received the Amy Biehl award. Prior to joining the Brooklyn Defender Services, Ms. Cheng clerked at the Constitutional Court of South Africa for Justice Albie Sachs and Justice Edwin Cameron.
Timothy Koller
Timothy Koller has worked as an assistant district attorney at the Staten Island District Attorney’s office for more than three decades. During that time, he has served three different D.A.s — two Democrats and a Republican. Now the executive assistant district attorney, Mr. Koller has the longest tenure of any prosecutor in borough history. Mr. Koller is a graduate of Pace University Law School.