NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE FACULTY

Patrice Fulcher is the Director of Training for the Maryland Office of the Public Defender (OPD).  She joined OPD in 2015, and is responsible for heading the Agency’s Gideon’s Promise Certified New Hire Attorney Training Program, and developing/managing all other public defender training curriculum for OPD’s attorneys and core staff throughout the state. Prior to becoming OPD’s Director of Training, Patrice was a tenured Associate Professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School. Her scholarship and other publications focus on issues surrounding the Prison Industrial Complex; private prisons, forced prison labor, and jail/prison video visitation.  She has lectured extensively on these issues as well as the erosion of the 4th Amendment, client-centered representation, and effective storytelling techniques for defense attorneys throughout the U.S.

From 1995-2007, Patrice successfully represented indigent clients as a public defender in Georgia.  She handled capital cases, major felonies, and fought against unconditional jail conditions.  She did so while serving as a Senior Staff Attorney for the Georgia Capital Defender and the Fulton County Public Defender offices; as Senior Staff Attorney for the Fulton County Conflict Defender; and while working with the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Patrice has served as a Core Instructor for Gideon’s Promise, Inc. since its inception, and is a faculty member for the National Criminal Defense College.  She has also been a litigation instructor for The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, The Kentucky Death Penalty Institute, The Mississippi Office of the State Public Defender Training Division, The National Association for Public Defense, The American Bar Association NACDL National Defender Training Program, The National Legal Aid & Defender Association, and is a faculty member of the Harvard Law School Trial Advocacy Workshop. She received her J.D. from Emory University School of Law, and her B.A. from Howard University. Patrice is admitted to practice law in Georgia and Maryland.

Kevann A. Gardner, Esq. is an experienced trial attorney who has practiced for over 10 years serving indigent clients in felony and misdemeanor cases. He currently specializes in litigating murder, attempted murder, and first-degree sexual assault cases as a supervising attorney in the Trial Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (‘PDS’). He also specializes in the analysis of forensic information as the senior member of the organization’s Forensic Practice Group.

Mr. Gardner has worked at PDS for more than a decade. In 2005, he began working at PDS as a criminal defense investigator, and he subsequently worked for the organization as a law clerk, a staff attorney, a hiring committee member, and the client intake representative, before starting his current supervisory role. He additionally worked as a public defender at the Legal Aid Society in the Bronx, NY, where he handled misdemeanor and felony cases. He currently teaches in trial advocacy programs at Harvard Law School, the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, the National Criminal Defense College (NCDC), the Basic Trials Skills Program for the New York State Defenders Association. He is also an adjunct professor at the American University Washington College of Law.

Mr. Gardner was born and raised in Detroit, MI. He earned his B.A. from Oakwood University in Huntsville, AL and his J.D. from the Cardozo School of Law in New York, NY. During law school, Mr. Gardner worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the New York State Assembly Subcommittee on Election Day Operations and Voter Disenfranchisement, and the Honorable Cheryl E. Chambers in the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court.

Kyana Givens is the current Federal Public Defender for the Districts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. Kyana became a Federal Public Defender in the Eastern District of North Carolina in 2020 after being a Visiting Attorney Advisor, Defender Services Office, Training Division, from August 2018-December 2019. She previously served as a trial attorney at The Federal Public Defender for the Western District of Washington since 2009 and a state public defender with the King County Public Defender (TDA) in 2005. Ms. Givens has been committed to mentoring and teaching other defenders throughout her practice. As the Albert M. Sacks Fellow at Harvard Law School, Ms. Givens worked closely with Clinical Professors teaching and training in trial advocacy.

While at Harvard, she represented adult and juvenile clients being served by CJI and provided litigation support to Prof. Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. on criminal and Civil Rights matters. Ms. Givens’ dedication to teaching and mentoring extends beyond the legal community. She has also taught Constitutional Law to undergraduate students at Seattle University. A graduate of Northeastern University School of Law (Boston, MA), Ms. Givens earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Seattle Pacific University (Seattle, WA).

Ms. Givens is a faculty member at The National Criminal Defense College (NCDC) in Macon, Georgia, she is also on the Faculty for the Trial Skills Academy for Federal Defenders and she regularly speaks at CLEs about trials skills, emerging digital technology in criminal cases and unconscious bias.

She is the proud mother of two boys, her weakness is ice cream, and enjoys travel, camping, county fairs, and any sandy beach.

Andres R. Guevara has been a trial attorney since graduating from the George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. After stints with both the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Enforcement Division of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Andres started his own law firm in 2007 specializing in criminal defense and trial cases. Out of his Denver office, Andres handles both private and court-appointed criminal work in various Colorado state courts (through the Office of the Alternate Defense Counsel (“ADC”)) and in federal courts (through the CJA Panel). Since starting his own law firm in 2007, Andres has handled and tried every type of criminal case, from misdemeanors to homicides, sex assaults, human trafficking, federal drug and gun cases, and large conspiracy cases. He has also handled post-conviction cases (including a State death penalty case) and has presented oral arguments before both the Colorado Court of Appeals and the Colorado Supreme Court.

Andres is a long-time instructor with ADC and the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar and has been on the faculty of the National Criminal Defense College for the past five years. He has presented and trained attorneys throughout the country, including presentations at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) annual conferences, trial training of lawyers with the U.S. Marines, and regional trial advocacy programs. Andres has presented on different topics including opening and closing arguments, direct examinations, cross-examinations, federal criminal law, trial practice, jury selection, and RICO cases. Andres is also an author having published in the areas of federal law enforcement, marijuana laws, and most recently in the area of cross-examining child witnesses (for The Champion, the official magazine of the NACDL).

Abe Hutt has been a criminal defense lawyer and NACDL member in Denver, Colorado since 1984. He is on the faculty of the National Criminal Defense College and since 2000 has taught at all of NCDC’s programs, including Advanced Cross-Examination, Theories, Themes and Storytelling, and each summer’s Trial Practice Institute. He has lectured around the country on trial tactics subjects, especially cross-examination and jury selection, as well as teaching courses on trial practice at the Law Schools of the University of Denver and the University of Colorado.

Abe has defended clients including sitting judges, elected district attorneys, and public defenders as well as the writer Hunter S. Thompson and innumerable lower profile people accused of serious crimes, from traffic offenses to capital murder. He has also represented attorneys, teachers, physicians, nurses, pilots, veterinarians, and dentists in disciplinary proceedings concerning their professional licenses.

Abe is a graduate of Harvard University (A.B. 1980) and the University of Southern California Law Center (J.D. 1984). He currently serves on the Colorado Supreme Court Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure and on the Colorado Legislature’s Interagency Task Force on Drunk and Impaired Driving. He is probably best known for his work in the area of DUI defense. He has authored numerous articles on the subject and served as an expert witness in the area as well. He is the only non-judge who is a contributing author to the Colorado County Court Judge’s DUI Benchbook and has written the DUI and Motor Vehicle Law section of The Colorado Bar Association’s Annual Update of Colorado Law since 1991.

Johnson is a graduate of Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina and the University of Kansas School of Law. He began work in the Topeka public defender’s office in 1975, then opened his private practice two years later, focusing primarily on criminal defense. He was in private practice for 28 years before his 2005 appointment to the bench in the 3rd Judicial District by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. He was the first African-American judge in the history of the judicial district, which is composed of Shawnee County. Johnson said he has seen small steps of progress in the Kansas judicial ranks when it comes to diversity. With his retirement, he said, “Kansas will have only three African-American district court judges and one serving on the Kansas Court of Appeals.”

In addition to his judicial duties, Johnson teaches at the National Criminal Defense College at the Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Ga.; the Trial Advocacy Institute at the University of Wyoming School of Law in Laramie; and the Intensive Trial Advocacy Program at Yeshiva University Cardoza School of Law in New York. He holds memberships in the National and State Criminal Defense Lawyers Associations, the American College of trial Lawyers, and the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. After more than a decade of serving as a judge, Johnson said at times the responsibility of the office is overwhelming. “When I was in practice, my viewpoint was primarily from the person I was representing,” he said. “Sometimes I felt the court was taking the easy way out. After taking the bench, it became clear to me that making the right decision was overwhelming. It’s very difficult to assess what the judge has to go through. From that standpoint, it was quite humbling. There was a lot more to it than I thought.” Johnson said he appreciates the trust and support extended to him by the residents of Shawnee County and hopes his service lived up to their expectations.

In retirement, Johnson said he plans to continue lecturing and teaching and to play golf in each of the 50 states. Johnson and his wife have two children, three grandsons, and two granddaughters