Charles Press

Charlie Press joined the UT Law Faculty in June of 2017 to become the new Director of the Actual Innocence Clinic.  Upon graduating law school in 1992, Mr. Press served as the first Death Penalty Law Clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  He then represented death sentenced prisoners in California, serving as a Deputy State Public Defender and attorney at the Habeas Corpus Resource Center in San Francisco.  

In 1998, Mr. Press formed a non-profit in Jackson, Mississippi to represent death sentenced prisoners in post-conviction proceedings and to assist private attorneys in these cases.  The presence of the non-profit, at a time when the state was not paying attorneys to represent prisoners in habeas corpus proceedings, led to the creation of the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel funded by the State of Mississippi.  

From 2010 through 2012, Mr. Press was a Clinical Faculty Member and Senior Supervising Attorney of the Northern California Innocence Project, a clinic of Santa Clara University Law School. From 2013 until joining UT Law, Mr. Press was a Senior Staff Attorney at the California Appellate Project, a non-profit which assists private counsel appointed to represent California death sentenced prisoners in direct appeal and post-conviction proceedings.