NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE FACULTY

Frank believes that good trials are much like good movies: good stories, good acting, and damn good directing. He feels that a good trial lawyer should bring to the show every possible talent: singing, dancing, miming, etc. Whatever it takes to get the point across is important. But, he feels, as a faculty member, that imparting these qualities requires from his ‘students’ an ability to know and appreciate that we are in a constantly changing matrix. We are constantly evolving and our evolution as people can make or break our evolution as trial lawyers: if we remain close-minded, we shut ourselves off to learning and honing our talents. We must never stop learning. And, at the end of the day, Frank learns just as much from his ‘students’ as they do from him. And, for that, he is eternally grateful.

I started my career as a public defender in Colorado. After leaving the PD’s office, I have maintained and dedicated my career to criminal defense. I am fortunate to be able to continue to represent indigent clients through court appointments in both state and federal court, along with private clients. I can not imagine doing any other kind of work!

Anthony J. Natale, “Tony” is lead capital counsel for the defense team representing Abdul Rahim Al Nashiri, the individual charge with masterminding the bombing of the USS Cole, the Military Commission Tribunal being held in Guantanamo, Cuba. Previously he was a Supervising Assistant Federal Public Defender in Miami, Florida. Tony was also the training coordinator for the Federal Defender Office and the CJA panel lawyers for the Southern District of Florida.

Prior joining the Federal Defenders Office he was in private practice for over twenty years concentrating in criminal defense and civil rights trials in both State and Federal courts. The cases he has taken to trial include capital murder, terrorism, complex fraud matters, large drug conspiracies, civil rights violations and personal injury actions.

He has been a member of the National Criminal Defense College faculty since 1982, and lectures extensively throughout the United States on criminal defense topics such as voir dire, advanced cross-examination, cross-examination of experts and theory of the case. Tony has been instrumental in the development of trial practice training programs for the Federal Defender and CJA Training Division and has helped to organize and teach in criminal defense training programs in China, Zimbabwe and Vietnam.

He is a member of the Florida and District of Colombia Bars, NACDL, FACDL and has been admitted pro hac vice in several jurisdictions throughout the country. He is a graduate of the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University and the Antioch School of Law.

Aaron Nelson graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School in 1996. He is the owner of Nelson Defense Group, LLC, in Hudson, Wisconsin, where he devotes 100% of his practice to defending people accused of crimes or charged with drunk driving. He has been an instructor at the WI SPD Trial Skills since 2012 and an instructor at the National Criminal Defense College (“NCDC”) since 2014. Aaron still dreams of becoming a public defender and appreciates all the incredibly hard and life-saving work all of Public Defenders do on a daily basis.

Bob Pepin started his 39-year criminal defense career as a work study intern with the Public Defender’s office in Boulder, Colorado during his first year of law school. He tried a case to a jury that summer and was hooked.

By then, his tour as an army infantryman in West Berlin, its infamous Wall still imprisoning an entire population, had sharpened Bob’s sense of how jealously our freedoms, our Constitutions, must be protected. He considers criminal defense in general, and public defense in particular, to be deeply patriotic commitments.

Bob was a Deputy Colorado State Public Defender for eleven years. The head of an office for 5 of those years, he was extensively involved in training new defenders and was added to the NCDC faculty in 1991. His state defender trial experience included the wildly polarizing first significant Colorado Make My Day Case and capital work.

Bob was in private practice for six years; focusing on criminal defense and serving as co-editor of the Criminal Law Column of the Colorado Lawyer, on the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar (CCDB) board of directors, and as president of the CCDB. In 1998 Bob joined the team that successfully stopped El Paso County from sentencing Lucas Salmon to death.

In 2000 Bob joined the Colorado Federal Public Defender as a trial attorney. Over the years he has trained attorneys in workshops and clinical programs across the country, lectured extensively on jury selection, cross and direct examination, evidence, opening statements, closing arguments, and various aspects of federal and state criminal practice. He is the 2020 recipient of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar’s Jonathon Olom Award presented “…for remarkable personal sacrifice made without regard to personal gain in the defense of the accused…”

Bob retired June, 2019 and moved to Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula where he spends his time hiking, fishing, and writing for his own entertainment. Bob is still training at trial advocacy programs and doing some legal work. He and his wife, Sharlene, also a defender, have a daughter and son, neither of whom intend to permanently weather the gray skies of the Pacific Northwest, no matter how green the forests or mighty the rivers.

In summer 2022, Ms. Heather Pinckney was named the incoming Director of Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (hereinafter PDS)- widely recognized as the premier public defender office in the country. Prior to this exciting move, she was a partner at Harden and Pinckney, PLLC, a boutique law firm specializing in the areas of criminal defense litigation, civil litigation, contract and family law. She was the Co-chair of the D.C. Bar Criminal Law and Individual Rights Section Steering Committee for 3 years.

Before entering into private practice, Ms. Pinckney served as the Deputy Chief of the Trial Division for the PDS. As Deputy Trial Chief, Ms. Pinckney assisted in the management and day to day operations of the trial division and supervised over 60 attorneys litigating criminal cases in the District of Columbia Superior Court. Prior to becoming Deputy Trial Chief, Ms. Pinckney served for eight years as a staff attorney at PDS. She also served for four years as the Chair of the D.C. Public Defender Service Hiring Committee.

During her tenure, Ms. Pinckney represented juvenile and adult indigent clients on criminal matters ranging from misdemeanors to homicides before both, the D.C Superior Court and the United States Parole Commission. Her representations have included individuals charged with homicide, sex offenses, arson, firearm violations, and obstruction of justice. She has tried numerous jury trials to verdict and has represented individuals at every stage of criminal litigation, including pre-indictment, grand jury, trial and post-conviction.

Prior to beginning at PDS, she worked for the Educational Opportunities Section of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. She also worked for The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless and TransAfrica. She served as chair of the 2005 PDS Criminal Practice Institute Conference, acted as faculty for numerous PDS Summer Series Training Sessions and was an active member of the PDS Forensic Practice Group, which dealt with areas involving blood spatter and DNA.

Ms. Pinckney teaches litigation skills at Trial Skills Programs all around the country, including the states of Colorado, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin. She has also served as a guest lecturer at Howard University School of Law, American University School of Law, George Washington University School of law, The David A. Clarke School of Law (UDC) and the Harvard Law School Trial Advocacy Workshop. She currently serves as a faculty member for Gideon’s Promise and the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia.

Ms. Pinckney is the proud recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Alumnus Award from D.C. Law Students in Court, in recognition of her commitment to pro bono criminal defense work on behalf of indigent clients. In 2017 and 2018, she and her business partner were each named one of Washington D.C.’s Best Lawyers for Criminal Defense by the Washingtonian Magazine.

She is a native Washingtonian and received her B.A. from Marymount University and her J.D. from George Washington University School of Law. Ms. Pinckney is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.

Larry Pozner
lecturer, author, and trial consultant

Larry is a solo practitioner, with his time spent on lecturing, writing and case consultation. He is co-author of Cross Examination: Science and Techniques (Lexis 3rd edition 2018, Pozner and Dodd). His lectures on trial techniques, principally Pozner on Cross: The Chapter Method, have taken him to 48 states, throughout Canada, and (inexplicably) Brazil. Delaware and South Dakota are missing.  Know anybody there?

Larry is also a past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, which honored him with its highest recognition; the Olom Award. He graduated law school (UC Hastings, summa cum barely) knowing nothing about how to defend. Thankfully, he landed his dream-job as a Colorado public defender. It was there that he had a great training director, Steve Rench, who patiently taught Larry how the elements of trial fit together.

After his years as a public defender, Larry had a solo criminal defense practice, which eventually grew to a 3 -lawyer firm, including fellow NCDC Faculty member, Abe Hutt.  In 2000 Larry assembled a firm, eventually 30 lawyers, and added to his criminal defense practice the representation of plaintiffs and defendants in commercial litigation. This commercial litigation practice includes an $111 million verdict against PNC Bank, recently affirmed, and the successful defense of Pat Bowlen in a trial challenging Mr. Bowlen’s purchase and ownership of the Denver Broncos.

For many years Larry has taught criminal law at the University of Denver College of Law, where he was voted Best Professor.  That may have had something to do with his “Nobody Flunks” policy. He also writes a column for the NACDL Champion, entitled Cross Country. It is practical advice, so he never sites case law.

Larry is excited to be rejoining the NCDC faculty after too long an absence.