Through funding by the United States Department of Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the first of five capital trial defense trainings will take place at Santa Clara University School of Law November 11 -13, 2005. The site was chosen in part because of the law school’s long commitment to death penalty issues. The Death Penalty College at Santa Clara, which has trained capital lawyers since 1992, is viewed as a model for capital training.
The Bryan R. Shechmeister Death Penalty College began in 1992 when Santa Clara County public defender Shechmeister came to (then) law school Dean Jerry Uelmen to create a training program for lawyers with pre-trial capital cases. Dean Uelmen brought in Professor Ellen Kreitzberg to work with Shechmeister and Kreitzberg remains the director of the program today.
In keeping with the law school’s commitment to death penalty issues, the Santa Clara Law Review has recently published a death penalty study. You can read it in its entirety at http://www.scu.edu/lawreview.
