NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE FACULTY

Jon M. Sands has devoted his career to the defense of indigent federal criminal defendants at the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Arizona. As an Assistant Federal Defender since 1987, and as the Federal Public Defender since 2004, Jon has handled cases at trial, on appeal, and in post-conviction habeas corpus litigation. Jon is a graduate of Yale College (1979, magna cum laude), and received his law degree from the University of California, Davis (1984, high honors), where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review.

After graduation, Jon clerked for the Honorable Mary M. Schroeder, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (which brought him to Arizona). Before joining the Federal Public Defender’s Office, Jon was an Associate at Meyer, Hendricks, Victor, Osborn, Maledon (presently Osborn Maledon). Jon served as Chair of the State Bar’s Committee on Professional Responsibility. He has also served as Chair of the State Bar’s Criminal Justice Section and as Chair of the State Bar’s Criminal Jury Instructions Committee.

Jon is presently the Chair of the Defender Services Advisory Group, which represents all Federal Defender and Community Defender offices in advising the Judicial Conference’s Defender Services Committee and the Administrative Office of the United States Courts on federal indigent defense matters. He has also been Chair of the Federal Defender Committee on the United States Sentencing Guidelines, which is congressionally charged with advising and testifying before the United States Sentencing Commission. Jon has been President of the Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice and President of the National Association of Federal Defenders. In addition to his public defender duties, Jon is an adjunct faculty at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, and is a faculty member of the National Criminal Defense College. He has published numerous legal articles, law reviews, essays, and book reviews, and has contributed chapters to several legal treatises. Jon has lectured and taught on a wide array of legal topics.”

JUVAL O. SCOTT has been the Federal Public Defender for the Western District of Virginia since January 2019. Her district consists of three offices (Roanoke, Charlottesville, and Abingdon) that handle federal criminal cases charged in the seven court locations that span the western 63% of the state. Prior to her appointment as Federal Public Defender, she was an enthusiastic Attorney Advisor with the Training Division of the Defender Services Office in Washington, DC. Before joining the Training Division, she was an Assistant Federal Defender in the Milwaukee office of the Federal Defender Services of Wisconsin, Inc. and with the Indiana Federal Community Defenders in Indianapolis, Indiana. In her former life, Juval worked as an associate in a small firm primarily handling criminal, personal injury, and family law matters; a deputy prosecutor for the Tippecanoe County Prosecutor’s Office in Lafayette, Indiana; and as Associate General Counsel for a private investigation firm focusing on trademark litigation. She has also served as Judge Pro Tempore in the Marion County Criminal Courts.

Juval received her law degree from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, and she obtained her Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Chemistry from Xavier University of Louisiana. She regularly teaches at local CJA panel trainings and programs sponsored by the Defender Services Office Training Division, as well as The National Criminal Defense College, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and their state affiliates, Wisconsin State Public Defender, The Bronx Defenders, and the National Bar Association.

She is married to Randle B. Pollard, Of Counsel with Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. They have three children—Charles Beauchamp, Jr., a senior studying neuroscience at Duke University; Mason Pollard, a precocious and nature-loving fifth-grader at St. Anne’s-Belfield School; and Zion Pollard, a professorial and humorous fifth-grader at St. Anne’s-Belfield School.

She is a voracious reader, savors moments with friends and family, and is an avid traveler, having visited 37 countries spanning six continents and 40 states.

Dumaka Shabazz is a federal public defender based in Nashville, Tennessee, where he represents clients charged with fraud, homicide, and other violent, white-collar or large-scale narcotics crimes. Before joining the Federal Public Defender’s Office in 2010, Professor Shabazz was a criminal defense attorney in private practice for five years. He began his legal career in the Davidson County District Attorney’s Office, where he prosecuted criminal cases through negotiation, motions practice and trials, and participated in numerous jury trials involving crimes from DUI to homicide.

He is a staff teacher at the New Defender College for newly hired federal public defenders, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and has been a guest lecturer at Vanderbilt University and Sewanee—The University of the South. At Vanderbilt, he teaches Trial Advocacy.

Bart Sheela is an Alternate Public Defender in San Diego. In his over thirty-five years of practice, he has tried just about every variety of criminal case, including several capital cases.

He has served on the California Public Defender Association’s Board of Directors for nearly 20 years and has served as its President. He has assisted in the planning of the Capital Case Defense Seminar, the largest capital case defense program in the nation, for the last 10 years. In addition, he has been a co-chair of the Training Committee for 10+ years and planned nearly 100 trainings for California lawyers. In 2019, he was chosen as the Public Defender of the Year.

He was formerly the Chair of the California State Bar’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct and has written and lectured on legal ethics and trial practice.

He proudly serves on the faculty at the National Criminal Defense College and the Clarence Darrow Death Penalty Defense College.

He has successfully resolved his last seven death penalty cases.

Jeff Sherr is the Training Director for the National Association for Public Defense producing hundreds of webinars for public defense professionals across the nation. Prior to that he was the Manager of the Education and Strategic Planning Branch of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy. Jeff started with the DPA since 1994, starting first as a law clerk, then working with the Juvenile Post Dispositional Unit, then in the trial division with the Stanford Field Office, and now in Frankfort with the education staff. Jeff graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Law in 1995. Jeff has been a faculty member for Gideon’s Promise, the National Criminal Defense College, Clarence Darrow Death Penalty College, Harvard Trial Advocacy Workshop, Bronx Defender Academy, and other state litigation institutes.

In addition to regularly training public defender litigators and trainers, Jeff trains public defender leaders nationally and for many individual defender states and offices. Jeff also has an extensive background in theatre having studied with the National Shakespeare Conservatory and the University of Kansas. Jeff performs regularly with Central Kentucky Improv in Lexington, Kentucky and at Improv Festivals across the country.

Where hasn’t Fredi worked? She’s been an Assistant Federal Defender in Omaha, Nebraska; Boise, Idaho; Reno, Nevada and Asheville, North Carolina, with side stops in Washington, DC as visiting counsel at the Defender Training Branch and at the U.S. Sentencing Commission. She’s in such “high demand” that she recently received a recruiting email asking her if she would like to be a legal assistant in an up and coming workers’ comp firm. She wrote back thanking them but she was having too much fun being an advocate for poor people and had to decline their lovely offer. Then she killed her LinkedIn account.

An honors grad of Cornell University and New York University School of Law, Fredi has served on the faculty for numerous programs around the country. Her favorite tag line during her teaching sessions is, “You understand this is interactive, right?” To date, no one has successfully slunk down low enough for her to not make eye contact and ask for a volunteer.

Fredi co-authored Trial in Action: The Persuasive Power of Psychodrama and expects to be an answer to a trivia question one day because of it. She’s written article/chapters on various topics: child pornography, voir dire, cross examination and the effects of incarceration on families. Her two passions are psychodrama (where she’s certified as a practitioner, not to be confused with being certified period) and Improv. She will play improv games all day if allowed, and you’ll often hear her muttering, “Whoosh, Bang, Pow!”

Michael L. Stout is a trial attorney specializing in Criminal Law. He received a J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law and is a Recognized Specialist in Criminal Law. He often teaches other lawyers throughout the nation through workshops and seminars, especially in the area of jury selection.

Michael has been on the faculty of the National Criminal Defense College for 36 years. He was the first chair of the New Mexico Public Defense Commission and remains a member of the Commission.  Michael also serves as the acting President of New Mexico Justice, a Criminal Justice PAC.  He is an AV rated attorney and has been named in every issue of the Best Lawyers of America, SuperLawyers, and most recently on America’s Top 100 Criminal Defense Attorneys.

Ryan is a criminal defense attorney based in Athens, Georgia who practices in both federal and state courts. Ryan is a former state public defender and state capital defender.  Ryan began his legal career in 2001 as an Athens public defender.  For 12 years, Ryan dedicated himself to defending indigent defendants in Athens on cases ranging from disorderly conduct to murder.  During his five years as lead attorney for the Northeast Georgia Capital Defender Office, none of the office’s clients were sentenced to death.  Ryan’s current private practice focuses 100% on criminal defense.  Ryan is an experienced trial lawyer having tried all manner of misdemeanor and felony cases.  Ryan is also a faculty member of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Bill Daniel Trial Advocacy Program.