Brendan Van Winkle

Criminal Law / Post-Conviction
Class of 2020
Photo of Brendan Van Winkle

Brendan Van Winkle is an attorney in the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Public Defender for the Western District of Oklahoma. Previously, he was a staff attorney at Justice 360, a non-profit organization located in Columbia, South Carolina that focuses on serving individuals facing the death penalty and juveniles facing lengthy sentences in South Carolina. He started his work there as the Craig N. Yankwitt Fellow for Death Penalty Advocacy. The two-year fellowship is a partnership between Justice 360 and the Cornell Death Penalty Project of Cornell Law School. As a fellow, Brendan was involved in direct representation of death-sentenced individuals, advocacy efforts, and creating resources for other capital defense attorneys, and also worked on litigation and academic projects with the Cornell Death Penalty Project.

At Texas Law, Brendan was a Mithoff Pro Bono Scholar on the Expunction Project, participated in the Capital Punishment Clinic and Criminal Defense Clinic, and interned with the Texas Office of Capital and Forensic Writs and the Capital Habeas Unit of the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Austin. He spent a semester in practice interning with the American Civil Liberties Union's Capital Punishment Project in Durham, North Carolina and worked in the summers for the Sedgwick County Public Defender Office in Wichita, Kansas and the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham.

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