Live webinar presented by Julia Leighton, JD
May. 4, 2023, 12:30 pm
90 min of CLE credit anticipated
This program is the fourth in a series of 4 webinars focused on issues related to firearms evidence. This program will offer guidance to attorneys seeking to challenge the admissibility of firearm and toolmark evidence under a foundational validity challenge as opposed to a validity as applied challenge. The presentation will focus on seeking to limit testimony to describing and identifying the class characteristics that the known and unknown share because this is all that is currently scientifically defensible.
The presenter will review the landmark NAS and PCAST reports because they are an excellent starting point and the focus of initial efforts to limit the FATM examiners’ testimony. However, it is essential to understand and be able to critique subsequent “black box” studies in the field, including the FBI/AMES II study. Finally, attorneys will gain information about utilizing expert assistance in these challenges, including selecting appropriate experts to educate counsel and the court on limitations of the current research.
Registration:
This program is part of the 2023 IDS Forensic Science Education Series. The webinars will be presented monthly and are free to attend. Attorneys who want CLE credit for attending will be billed $3.50 per credit hour by the State Bar. Use this link to register for all webinars in the series and attend any that are of interest.
Presenter:
Julia Leighton, JD
Julia Leighton is the former general counsel for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS). As general counsel, Ms. Leighton advised the PDS’s Board of Trustees, the PDS management team, and PDS lawyers on a wide variety of legal issues and managed litigation involving PDS. Ms. Leighton is a former two term member of the D.C. Bar Legal Ethics Committee and the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct Review Committee.
In addition to her duties as general counsel, Ms. Leighton was a member of PDS’s Forensic Practice Group and was a 2001 founding member. In 2014 Ms. Leighton was appointed by the U.S. Attorney General to the National Commission on Forensic Science. Ms. Leighton served as a voting member on the Commission until its charter was sunset and served on three of its subcommittees.
Prior to becoming PDS’s general counsel, Ms. Leighton spent eleven years litigating criminal cases at both the trial and appellate level; eight years as a staff attorney at PDS, and three years as a trial attorney in the Environmental Crimes Section of the U.S. Department of Justice. Ms. Leighton received her B.A. in Economics from Bowdoin College, Magna Cum Laude, and her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center, Cum Laude.