CRIMINAL AND JUVENILE DEFENSE CLINIC
Assistant Professor Rachel Moran leads the Criminal and Juvenile Defense Clinic.
Clinic students discuss a case. From the left: Aaron Bostrom, Katherine Boland and Dolapo Oshin.
The clinic handles a variety of cases, from petty, regular and gross misdemeanors to, occasionally, felonies. Client cases, while varying by semester, are on average 60% juvenile cases and 40% adult cases. Judges who have worked with the clinic come away impressed. “The student attorneys are always very well prepared, quite poised, and they are zealous and effective advocates for their clients,” said 4th Judicial District Judge Mark Kappelhoff, who has seen firsthand the clinic’s impact in his court. “In our criminal justice system, it is critically important that those who are accused of a criminal offense are provided effective counsel to represent their rights during the course of a criminal case,” he said. “By representing youth in juvenile court who may not have an attorney, the student attorneys from the clinic are providing important legal services to these clients, which, in turn, helps to improve the juvenile justice system in Hennepin County.” Hennepin County asked the clinic to represent teens charged with serious traffic offenses (reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, etc.) because public defenders are not assigned to civil cases. Before the clinic’s existence, most of the teens in those cases just went unrepresented. As a result of not having attorney representation, they pled guilty.
The clinic represents clients all the way through resolution of their cases, which could include a dismissal of the charges, a guilty plea or going to trial. The length of cases can range from just a couple of weeks to longer than a couple of semesters. The clinic also handles expungement cases. “There is a huge need in Minnesota for people who have previously been charged and sometimes convicted, to have criminal charges on their record wiped away,” Moran said. “There is no free attorney provided [by the state] for people who are seeking to expunge those records. Criminal charges cause huge problems for people with housing, employment, schooling … in certain occupations – you’re automatically excluded from them if you have a certain type of conviction.” The clinic currently is handling six expungement cases. One deals with a woman who committed a crime (“out of desperation associated with poverty,” according to Moran) many years ago. “It has been a thorn in her side for years,” Moran said. “It has kept her from having stable housing; it has been the reason she’s been denied many, many jobs. She had numerous jobs where she had made it to the end of the process, told that she would get the job, but when [the employer] ran the background check, she was told, ‘Actually, no.’”
Spring 2020 Page 13
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