Stetson’s Student Veterans Organization and Student Animal Legal Defense Fund chapter co-sponsored a film presentation on Feb. 28 about using dogs in the military.
Stetson Law professor Peter Fitzgerald’s dogs attended the film presentation about the use of dogs in the military. Photo by Bianca Guerrier.
Stetson Law students, along with dogs “James” and “Dora,” attended a screening of Always Faithful. “Dora” is a registered therapy dog trained by animal law expert Peter Fitzgerald, a professor at Stetson.
The documentary, directed by cinematographer Harris Done and produced by Academy Award-winning filmmaker James Moll, tells the story of U.S. Marine Corps dog teams serving on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Stetson recently initiated a popular therapy dog program to help students manage stress during exam time, which includes visits from therapy dogs trained by Stetson faculty and alumni.
As a young lawyer in his 20s working for the Florida attorney general in Tallahassee 50 years ago, a Stetson University College of Law graduate named Bruce Jacob was assigned to represent the respondent in a Supreme Court case that made history.
Bruce Jacob, professor and dean emeritus at Stetson.
The Court’s landmark decision on March 18, 1963, regarding the right to a fair trial in Gideon v. Wainwright was the impetus for the idea of public defenders. Jacob, now a professor and dean emeritus at Stetson University College of Law, was inspired to dedicate the next 50 years of his life to handling cases for indigent clients.
Shortly after the decision in Gideon, Jacob said he signed up as a volunteer public defender, one of the first in the state.
“I just thought it was the right thing to do,” Jacob explained.
After joining the faculty at Emory University School of Law in 1965, Jacob established the Legal Assistance for Inmates Program at the Atlanta Penitentiary. In just the first two weeks after its launch, more than 750 inmates approached the program for assistance. Jacob supervised the program and 53 students who volunteered to work on cases. In 1969, Jacob took a federal prisoner’s case to the Supreme Court and won the case for the petitioner in Kaufman v. United States.
While studying at Harvard Law School, Jacob helped start the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project. Through the Community Legal Assistance Office in Cambridge, Mass., Jacob supervised law students defending criminal cases and representing indigent people.
Jacob fought for the rights of the indigent throughout his teaching career. He has taught 20 different law school courses over the past 48 years. Jacob currently teaches courses on constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law and criminal procedure at Stetson University, where he has received hundreds of letters from inmates and lawyers through the years requesting his expertise.
Jacob is taking one inmate’s case, the case of Dwight Roberts, to the Florida Supreme Court. That case involves a sentence that was imposed on the basis of an unconstitutional statute, Jacob said.
Recently, Jacob also took the clemency case of Jerome Davis, referred to him by the Public Defender’s Office. A non-violent offender, Davis was convicted multiple times for selling cocaine or fake cocaine and sentenced in 1991 to life in prison, the highest penalty allowed. Jacob estimated that the combined sum of money Davis made from all drug sales was $70 and that tax-payers have spent approximately $30K a year on Davis’ prison stay over the past 20 years.
“Sentences in the U.S. are longer than in any other country in the world,” Jacob said.
Jacob is asking Florida’s clemency board to consider whether Davis’ life-sentence fits his crime, the same sentence defendants convicted of sexual battery, child molestation, and murder have received. Ultimately, the state attorney general, Commissioner of Agriculture and governor will review the clemency application that he filed on May 30, 2012, Jacob said.
One obstacle to shorter prison sentences for non-violent offenders like Davis, Jacob said, could be opposition from the prison industry itself, which supports employees who are caretakers of long-term prisoners. Another obstacle is the struggle to provide indigent people with adequate counsel.
As we approach the 50th anniversary of Gideon, Jacob said that public defender offices are underfunded and lawyers are overwhelmed with cases.
“The justice system requires ethical prosecutors and solid defense lawyers,” Jacob said “Without criminal defense lawyers, the justice system disintegrates.”
Stetson University College of Law professor, graduates, have been appointed to lead efforts to protect wetlands in Florida and around the world.
Professor Royal Gardner and recent graduate Marcela Bonells have recently been appointed to leadership positions on the Ramsar Convention’s Scientific and Technical Review Panel (STRP).
Stetson professor Royal Gardner (second row, fourth from the left) and recent graduate Marcela Bonells (second row, fifth from the left) are both working with the Ramsar Convention’s STRP, shown here meeting with the STRP group in Switzerland.
Bonells, a May 2012 Stetson Law graduate, started work this month for the Ramsar Secretariat in Switzerland as the STRP Technical Officer. A former Biodiversity Fellow at Stetson, she completed an externship at the Ramsar Secretariat in Switzerland in summer 2011 and presented a paper at a Ramsar Pan-American Meeting in Jamaica in December 2011.
Alumna Anna Holt Upton was appointed to serve as outside general counsel for the Everglades Foundation, which is dedicated to protecting and restoring America’s Everglades, in 2011. She is a 2006 graduate of Stetson Law. Upton also represents the Florida Audubon Society in water quality litigation throughout the state.
Civil rights activists Ernest “Rip” Patton and David and Winonah Myers visited Stetson University College of Law on Feb. 22 as part of a special educational event organized by the local chapter of Jack and Jill of America for mothers and children in the Tampa Bay area.
Stetson Professor of Law Cynthia DeBose introduced the program, and Professor of Law Robert Bickel helped coordinate the event, celebrating the courageous activists who made history for racial equality.
“It is crucial that the younger generation understands the trials and tribulations suffered by their ancestors as well as those of their parents’ and grandparents’ generation so that they do not become complacent with the gains in civil rights enjoyed today,” said DeBose. “Parents need to remind their children of the historic struggles for equal rights. Slavery, Jim Crow laws mandating segregated public facilities, and the civil rights era are part of our history not often taught in school, so it is a parent’s responsibility to impart this knowledge to our children.”
(L-R): Civil rights activist and Freedom Rider Ernest “Rip” Patton, Stetson Professor of Law Cynthia DeBose, Freedom Riders Winonah and David Myers visited Stetson Law on Friday night, Feb. 22.
Patton was a member of the Nashville Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Patton and the Myers were members of the Freedom Riders, a group of men and women who risked their lives to assert the right to be treated equally according to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Freedom Riders tested the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that outlawed segregation in interstate public facilities. They traveled to bus stations throughout the Deep South that maintained illegally segregated drinking fountains, restrooms and lunch counters to assert their civil rights. They were met with violence and imprisonment.
Patton regularly participates in Stetson University’s constitutional law and the civil rights movement course, which includes a trip through the South to the historic sites in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee where civil rights history was made. Watch a video documenting Stetson University’s educational trip by visiting the Constitutional Law and the Civil Rights Movement forum.
On Feb. 19, alumni, faculty, staff and friends gathered in the Great Hall on Stetson’s Gulfport campus to celebrate the scholarly contributions of Stetson law professor and civil rights scholar Robert D. Bickel. Bickel’s former students Wil H. Florin JD ’80 and Thomas D. Roebig Jr. JD ’86, who regularly fund Stetson’s travel course on Constitutional Law and the Civil Rights Movement, sponsored the dinner program.
Professor Robert Bickel, second from the right, listens to a presentation Feb. 19 at Stetson honoring his scholarly contributions.
Professor Timothy Kaye spearheaded the event, which included the presentation of an online tribute book to Bickel, called a Webfestschrift, composed of articles written by faculty colleagues and former students. The book entitled “Shaking the World Gently: A Webfestschrift in Honor of Professor Robert D. Bickel” was edited and produced by Kaye in the tradition of the Festschrift, a book written to honor a respected person and presented during his or her lifetime.
Bickel teaches courses including Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Movement, Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Seminar, Defamation, Privacy and Other Issues Seminar, Employment Discrimination, Equal Employment Opportunity Internship, Torts, and Tort Law Practice and Skills.
Stetson’s LL.M. in Advocacy program is led by Charles Rose III, director of the Center for Excellence in Advocacy and Professor of Excellence in Trial Advocacy.
Stetson University College of Law, home to the top-ranked trial advocacy program in the country, is launching an online LL.M. in Advocacy, starting in August 2013. Courses leading to the advanced degree will be offered through a part-time, distance-learning platform.
Stetson’s Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Advocacy program is designed to meet the needs of busy legal practitioners who wish to learn the Stetson method of advocacy. Students enrolled in the program will complete courses online with some limited in-person participation. Applicants for admission to the LL.M. program must have a law degree from a U.S. law school or a law school approved by the appropriate authority outside the U.S.
“Stetson sets the benchmark for trial advocacy in the country,” said Charles Rose III, director of the Center for Excellence in Advocacy and Professor of Excellence in Trial Advocacy. “We focus on preparing our students for the practice of law, providing them the skills, knowledge and confidence to be as comfortable before the bench as they are drafting a brief for a case or interviewing a client. Stetson gives students the skills they need to conduct the business of law in the real world.”
The new online LL.M. program is offered through Stetson’s Center for Excellence in Advocacy, home to advocacy teams who have won four international titles, 60 national championships, 40 state titles, 38 best brief awards, and 96 best oralist/advocate awards. In the 18 years that U.S. News and World Report has ranked trial advocacy programs, Stetson has been ranked the top program 14 times.
Stetson’s advocacy center is also a resource for law professors and practitioners, hosting an annual Educating Advocates: Teaching Advocacy Skills conference and maintaining an Advocacy Resource Center.
Stetson University College of Law, home to the top-ranked advocacy program in the country, will launch the online Stetson Journal of Advocacy and the Law in May. This is believed to be the first law review designed to be read entirely online.
Students Jamie Combee and Erik Johanson are the founding editors of the journal, which will include a range of articles related to trial work and practical advocacy skills. Both students are members of Stetson’s award-winning Moot Court Board.
The students explained that the journal will have shorter format articles than can be easily viewed on mobile devices. Members of the judiciary, legal practitioners, as well as academics and law students, are invited to submit short articles on the subject of practicing advocacy.
“Articles do not need to conform to one topic or case,” Combee said.
Fellow student Johanson said, “Articles can focus on any practice area that involves advocating for clients.”
Professors Kate Bohl and Timothy Kaye are the journal’s faculty advisers. Bohl said she hopes the journal will appeal to a broad audience.
Professor Kaye personally designed the journal’s website to meet the increasing needs of burgeoning mobile technology. Last year, Kaye and six of his students authored a critically acclaimed book on jurisprudence.
The public is invited to attend a provocative conversation about sex trafficking in our community during the “Shattering the Stigma: Human Trafficking Breakfast Forum” on Feb. 27. The event is free, but advance reservations are requested. To RSVP, please call 813-254-1734 or email [email protected].
WHEN:
Wednesday, Feb. 27, 7:30-10:30 a.m.
WHERE: William Reece Smith Jr. Courtroom
Stetson University’s Tampa Law Center
1700 N. Tampa St., Tampa 33602
WHAT: The forum will feature a panel of several of the most prominent figures in Florida’s efforts to combat human trafficking crimes, as well as former victims of trafficking. The event is sponsored by The Junior League of Tampa and hosted by Stetson University College of Law.
Participants will include:
Luz Nagle, Stetson University College of Law professor
U.S. District Court and Florida Circuit Court judges
Special Agent Bill Williger of the Department of Homeland Security
Courtney McCowen of the Office of the Secretary, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice
Connie Rose, survivor and president and founder of Victims 2 Survivors.
Human trafficking is a major crime activity in Tampa and in the state of Florida, which ranks third in the nation for the crimes. Many sex trafficking victims are children exploited through Florida’s adult entertainment industry and prostitution, and the average age is 12-years-old, according to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center and FSU Center for the Advancement of Human Rights.
“This event is aimed at engaging more of our community in a conversation about how to combat this terrible crime,” said Stephanie Wiendl, president of The Junior League of Tampa. “We will explore where and how human trafficking is happening in the Tampa Bay area and how we as citizens can make an impact in the fight against this criminal activity.”
Members of the media: For additional event details, please call Suzanne Oaks Brownstein at 813-254-1734 or email [email protected].
Seven Stetson Law students in Professor Carol Henderson’s Scientific Evidence Workshop had an opportunity to learn firsthand what it’s like to work a crime scene investigation on Feb. 12.
Students in Professor Henderson’s Scientific Evidence Workshop conducted their own investigation of a mock crime scene on campus.
Pinellas County crime scene investigators walked the students through the process of collecting evidence at a mock crime scene on the Gulfport campus. The law students learned how evidence presented in the courtroom is collected during investigations.
“I thought it was a great experience,” said student Charles Strauss. “The hands-on experience of seeing the investigation procedures and techniques was an invaluable asset that can be used in legal practice. The class overall, but especially the crime-scene day, has fueled an interest in the forensic sciences that I will carry beyond just law school.”
Stetson University College of Law is partnering with the Community Law Program and the St. Petersburg Bar Foundation to prepare free simple wills and advance directives for WWII, Korea and Vietnam War veterans and their spouses.
WHAT: Stetson’s Center for Excellence in Elder Law and Veterans Law Institute will host a daylong program where volunteer attorneys from the Community Law Program will provide free wills and advance directives for WWII, Korea and Vietnam War veterans and their spouses. Light refreshments will be served. Appointments are required in advance.
WHEN: March 7, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.
WHERE: Mann Lounge and Great Hall, Stetson University College of Law, 1401 61st St. S., Gulfport.
Walk-in appointments are not permitted. To schedule an appointment, call 727-562-7393 by March 1.
John T. Berry, legal division director of the Florida Bar, was presented with this year’s Wm. Reece Smith Jr. Public Service Award. Stetson established the prestigious public service award for Wm. Reece Smith Jr. more than two decades ago.
(L-R): Wm. Reece Smith III, John T. Berry and Stetson Law Dean Christopher Pietruszkiewicz.
Berry is an expert in judicial education, ethics and professionalism who established professional development programs for the Florida Bar and State Bar of Arizona. He served as liaison for the State Bar of Arizona to the ABA Ethics 2000 Commission and ABA Multijurisdictional Practice Commission.
Stetson Law students and faculty attending this year’s Inns of Court Banquet on Feb. 13 in St. Petersburg celebrated the life of Wm. Reece Smith Jr., the lecture’s namesake and a legendary lawyer, who died on Jan. 11.
Smith, a longtime distinguished professorial lecturer and member of Stetson’s Hall of Fame, left behind a legacy of service to the legal profession. Smith founded Florida Legal Services and advocated for legal representation for the poor, served as president of the International, American and Florida Bar Associations, and was a member of the Carlton Fields law firm since 1953.
“A great attorney and an even greater human being, William Reece Smith Jr. embodied the values of Stetson University College of Law as much as any of our legendary leaders,” said Stetson Law Dean Christopher Pietruszkiewicz.
Nationally recognized trial lawyer Bruce Ross, of Holland & Knight LLP, presented the Wm. Reece Smith Jr. Distinguished Lecture at the Inns of Court Banquet. Ross is spearheading his law firm’s efforts to assist the Mickey Rooney Elder Abuse Project in providing free legal assistance to elder clients who have been exploited. Ross is included among the Best Lawyers in America for Trusts and Estates and among the Top 100 Attorneys by Worth Magazine and Who’s Who in Law.
Bruce Ross presented the Wm. Reece Smith Jr. Distinguished Lecture.
The Annual Inns of Court brings together prominent lawyers, experienced teachers and law students to exchange ideas, experiences and education. The adopted Stetson Inns of Court tradition has its roots in England.
Shivani Alamo, a student at Stetson University College of Law, has won the prestigious Lewis Hine Award for her volunteer work with children.
(L-R): Lewis Hine Awards chair Vincent Mai, Shivani Alamo, the 2013 Ronald H. Brown Award winner Alberto Carvalho, and the National Child Labor Committee President Jeff Newman at the award ceremony in New York. Photo courtesy Lisa Berg.
Alamo received the New Generation Award, a special Lewis Hine Award for Service to Children and Youth, named for the National Child Labor Committee photographer who documented early 20th century exploitation of children to facilitate child labor reform.
Traveling to New York to accept the award was a homecoming for Alamo, who grew up in the city and attended high school at the Community School for Social Justice. There, Alamo explained, she simply took much of New York’s social inclusiveness for granted. It was not until Alamo came to Florida as a college student more than five years ago, that she said she noticed a palpable need for social justice advocacy in her new community, especially among young people. It was then that she began to focus on mentoring and improving the lives of teenagers.
Alamo began working with Community Tampa Bay in St. Petersburg, Fla., where she assisted the ANYTOWN program, a five-day residential program for young people that encourages youth leadership and diversity education. Stetson Law students Bianca Guerrier and Johnny Ramirez have also volunteered with ANYTOWN as counselors.
“We teach students to be inclusive rather than tolerant,” Alamo said.
By creating social situations where students experience what it’s like to be discriminated against, and encouraging dialogue about the experience, students learn why it’s important to advocate against discrimination, Alamo explained.
“We take young people through an afternoon of experiencing limited sight, hearing and dexterity to show them what it’s like to be disabled,” Alamo said. “This provides students with an experience that hopefully leads to empathy.”
Before coming to Stetson Law, and shortly after graduating with an undergraduate degree in international relations and economics, Alamo dedicated a year to serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer with Community Tampa Bay. She spearheaded a new program called Facilitating the Leadership of Youth, or FLY, co-sponsored by the Rays Baseball Foundation. Young people engaged in FLY meet weekly to plan youth summits in the community that tackle social diseases like sexism, racism and stereotyping.
Getting young people talking to each other has had some positive results, Alamo said.
“We now have young people growing up in the social media age where conversations take place online,” Alamo said. “Getting them talking face-to-face with each other takes them outside of their comfort zones. They learn how to be facilitators for these difficult conversations in the community.”
Currently a full-time law student at Stetson, Alamo continues to attend weekly FLY meetings and to volunteer as a counselor with the ANYTOWN program, in addition to working as a guardian ad litem and mentor for Big Brothers Big Sisters. On Stetson’s Gulfport campus, Alamo recently helped facilitate a workshop during a diversity retreat for law students to explore how the idea of privilege influences social identity.
“All systemic social justice issues can be changed with quality education,” said Alamo, who plans to work in education law and reform after graduating from Stetson.
At the young age of 25 and in just the past five years, Alamo has impacted more than 1,000 young people.
“Quality education and cross-cultural interactions can reverse prejudices that we are all conditioned to have,” Alamo said. “Youth can change things.”
