Students will conduct interviews in correctional institutions with offenders who are serving extreme sentences for offenses committed as juveniles and prepare memos summarizing interviews for pro bono attorneys. Students may be offered the opportunity to extend their role to the Spring Semester, either as a pro bono volunteer or a pro bono internship, in order to conduct additional interviews and to compile data collected from interviews with youth offenders for purposes of producing a report for the Legislature.
Organization
Texas Criminal Justice Coalition
The TCJC identifies and advances real solutions to the problems facing Texas’ juvenile and criminal justice systems. TCJC is coordinating efforts in Texas to implement fair and age-appropriate sentences for youth, with a focus on abolishing life without parole or functional life without parole sentences for youth. The Juvenile Lifers Project has two primary goals: (1) identify all youth currently serving these extreme sentences and pair them with attorneys who can help then with their appeals and (2) produce a report to the Legislature to give it a better picture of these youth: who they are, what their lives were like prior to the commitment offense, and what they did that resulted in such an extreme sentence.
Project Details
- Website
- http://www.texascjc.org
- Project Start Date
- October 2014
- Approximate hours of work requested
- Up to 25 hours total over the course of fall semester, including training. Students will sign up for specific interview dates at the training.
- Training
- A four-hour training will be held Friday, October 17, 2014, 12pm-4pm in Goodwin Conference Room (CCJ 1.312); supervising attorneys also will be available to answer questions throughout the project.
- Skills used
- Client interviewing/intake legal writing; investigation
- Project location
- Various Texas prisons; carpools from Austin will be arranged
- Address
- 1714 Fortview Road, Suite 104, Austin, TX 78704
- Number of student volunteers requested
- Up to 16
- Class year preference
- 1L, 2L, 3L, LLM
- Required skills
- Student volunteers should have a strong commitment to criminal and juvenile justice issues, particularly reform to harsh juvenile sentencing practices in Texas, racial discrimination in juvenile justice, and /or human rights in the United States; exceptional candidates will have experience interviewing clients, ideally clients in institutional settings.
- To Apply
- Submit email stating interest and indicating whether you have a car to Sarah Sedgwick at ssedgwick@law.utexas.edu