Racial Justice Advocacy at Every Level 

This program focuses on the ways in which defenders can conduct themselves and advocate for their clients better by adding a lens of racial justice and elimianting bias. 

THURSDAY JULY 20TH 2023

All FACDL seminars, apart from the annual Criminal Law Certification Review seminar, are intended to: promote the excellence of, disseminate knowledge to, and provide education to, the criminal defense community.  In that regard, attendance at all seminars (apart from the certification review seminar) is limited to criminal defense attorneys, mitigation specialists, defense investigators and other staff involved in providing criminal defense.   

Registration for this event grants FACDL permission to use photographs and/or video of the registered attendees in publications, news releases, website pages, social media and in any other FACDL communications related to the mission of FACDL

Those seminar attendees in need of additional services under ADA, please provide notice of your needs to becky@facdl.org no later than May 18, 2023, so arrangements can be discussed in advance.

Registration: 

Registration closes JULY 18th, 2023

THIS WEBINAR IS FREE TO REGISTER

Note: This webinar will not be recorded and will not be accessible after it concludes

Speaker Bios

   Ricky Aiken, Inner City Innovators

Founder and Executive Director of Inner City Innovators, Ricky Aiken has made it his life’s mission to inspire and empower inner city youth to embody the change so desperately needed in their communities. Ricky is a boots-on-the-ground, “all-in”, agent of change who believes that real change happens when the people who need it, lead it. As a child raised in the innercity of West Palm Beach, Ricky has seen firsthand the plights associated with growing up in communities of concentrated disadvantage. He has suffered homelessness, witnessed familial addiction, lost friends to gun violence, and was expected to be another statistic; in fact, he admits to being well on his way to fulfilling that destiny until he vowed to change the trajectory of his life. Well known in West Palm Beach for his community activism, Aiken has found a way to use his life experiences and social capital to bring hope to his neighborhood and promote the value of resilience. A celebrated speaker and mentor, he has big plans for the inner city and is working hard to change the image and climate of inner city neighborhoods throughout Palm Beach County. www.innercityinnovators.org

   Seven CharlestIn, Las Semillas 

Seven Charlestin, teacher, mentor, lifelong resident in Pine Hills, Florida, and the founder of Las Semillas (Seeds of Pine Hills) which is a mutual aid network comprised of local institutions and grassroots organizations looking to support and service residents in Pine Hills. This is an artist-led mutual aid organization made for the growth and sustainability of the Pine Hills community. CharlestIn uses non-traditional methods, such as Tactical Urbanism to procure an environment and culture that would create a future that the people in Pine Hills could see themselves thriving in. This organization is also molded by the philosophy/theory called Black Quantum Futurism that uses art to re-imagine our futures and possibilities. https://seedsofpinehills.org

   Anthony Pierce, PACE Center for Girls

Anthony J. Pierce, affectionately known as “Pierce,” is a smalltown, southern gentleman who is passionate about youth and community advocacy.  Since graduating from the University of Florida, Pierce has devoted his time, talent, and treasure to enhancing the lives and experiences of those who call Gainesville home. www.pacecenter.org

   Abigail R. Langweiler, Esq.

Abigail Langweiler is criminal defense attorney who has dedicated her career to public defense.  Beginning her legal career at a boutique civil litigation and criminal defense firm and training and working at the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office, Abigail now defends the indigent at the Office of Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel for the Fourth District of Florida.  As deputy manager of the criminal division in the Palm Beach County office, Abigail passionately defends clients charged with serious first-degree felonies, homicides, and death penalty cases, focusing on creative defenses and centering on clients’ needs.  Abigail’s mission is to preserve the rights of the down-trodden and expose their plight through zealous representation of her clients. Abigail is an alumna of New Leaders Council, an organization dedicated to training progressive leaders.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Ithaca College, where she also minored in politics, Spanish, and dance.  A 2009 graduate of Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law, Abigail highly values the skill set she honed while attending law school.  Since 2018, Abigail has fought in the gun violence prevention movement as a local, and now statewide, lead in Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Abigail focuses on building relationships with community partner organizations that work to reduce violence and address its root causes. Abigail prioritizes opportunities to intersect indigent defense with violence intervention and prevention. Abigail lives in Boca Raton with her husband, Rob, and two young daughters, Stella and Olivia.

       Amy Nguyen 

Amy Nguyen is 

a Researcher, GIS Analyst and owner of Capital Maps, LLC in the Dallas, Texas area.  Her specialty is mapping Department of Justice community risk factors and performing demographic analysis.  She holds master’s level certification in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and has been working in capital sentencing mitigation for ten years.  Amy provides maps for capital litigation as well as expert testimony.   She has presented at conferences including the FACDL Death is Different Conference, and Darrow-Baldus Death Penalty Defense College. To date she has been involved in 84 state trials in 13 states across the nation and 22 federal trials.  Her maps have been featured in Evaluation for Capital Sentencing by Oxford Press and Handbook of Psychology, Forensic Psychology, in John Wiley & Sons. 

     Andrea Lyon

Andrea Lyon is a renowned lawyer, author, speaker, professor and former law school dean. Dubbed “The Angel of Death Row” by the Chicago Tribune, she was the first woman to serve as lead attorney in a death penalty case, and she holds an unparalleled 19 wins in 19 capital cases. Andrea has dedicated her career to advocating and upholding justice for all. Her legal work began in the Cook County Public Defender’s Office where she rose to become Chief of the Homicide Task Force. Managing a 22-lawyer unit, she tried over 130 homicide cases and defended more than 30 potential capital cases at the trial level, including taking 19 capital cases through penalty phase. In 1990, Andrea founded and directed the Illinois Capital Resource Center representing all of the death row inmates in Illinois. She is leader of academic reforms in both curriculum development and mentoring diversity in law school student and faculty populations. Andrea brought her depth of criminal justice experience to enrich legal education at University of Michigan Law School as assistant clinical professor; DePaul University College of Law as clinical professor of law, Associate Dean of Clinical Programs, and Director of the Center for Justice in Capital Cases; and as Dean of Valparaiso University Law School. In January of 2015, Andrea was awarded Operation Push’s Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Lyndon B. Johnson Dream-Makers Award. A winner of the prestigious National Legal Aid and Defender Association’s Reginald Heber Smith Award for best advocate for the poor in the country, she is a nationally recognized expert in the field of death penalty defense and a frequent Continuing Legal Education (CLE) teacher throughout the country.  She has been designated as learned counsel in the federal defense system. Andrea received her undergraduate degree from Rutgers University and her law degree from Antioch School of Law. Her publications include over fifty law review articles, over ten practice manuals and books, including Fixing Legal Injustice in America: The Case For a Defender General of the United States (Rowman & Littlefield 2022), The Feminine Sixth: Women in Criminal Defense (NACDL Press 2018), The Death Penalty: What’s Keeping it Alive (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), Team Defense in Criminal Cases with Mortimer Smith (ABA publication, 2014), and Angel of Death Row: My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer (Kaplan, 2010).

CLE

Only attendees registered through FACDL may submit their credits through The Florida Bar

Pending 

Agenda

Thursday, July 20, 2023

1:30 pm                           Opening Remarks and Introduction

1:40 pm                           Community Advocacy Panel - Ricky Aiken, Seven Charleston, Anthony Pierce. 

                                                    Facilitated by Abigail R. Langweiler

2:30 pm                           Break and Introduction of next speaker 

2:40 pm                           Using Maps to Tell Your Client's Story - Amy Nguyen 

3:30 pm                           Break and Introduction of next speaker

3:40 pm                           Race Bias and the Importance of Consciousness for Defense Lawyers - Andrea Lyon

4:30 pm                           Closing Remarks