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 supervising attorneys. Students will also conduct legal and case research related to the cases of the inmates and prepare comprehensive case memos for prospective pro bono attorneys. Students may also have the opportunity to make an in-person case presentation. Students may elect to participate only in the case memos component of the project; participation in the project does not require conducting interviews.
Organization
Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (“TCJC”)
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
- February 2015
- Approximate hours of work requested
- 25-40 hours total over the course of the spring semester, including training. Students will sign up for specific interview dates at the training
- Training
- A four-hour interactive training on interviewing will be held either on Friday, February 27, from 1:30pm-5:30pm or on Sunday, March 1, from 12:00pm-4:00pm. Students who will not be conducting interviews or who participated in this project in the fall semester are not required to attend the interview training. An additional one-hour training on case research that all participants are required to attend will be scheduled at a later date according to student schedules. Supervising attorneys also will be available to answer questions throughout the project.
- Skills used
- Client interviewing/intake legal writing; investigation; legal research
- 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 10
- 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 to ssedgwick@law.utexas.edu by Friday, February 13, 2015; in the email, students should (1) include a short (1-3 sentence) statement of interest; (2) indicate whether they want to conduct interviews in prison facilities; and, if so, (3) whether they are available for training on 2/27 and 3/1 and whether they are available to conduct facilities visits on weekdays, weekends, or both.