Law Clinic Garners Rare Win in U.S. Court of Appeals

The School of Law’s Clinical Legal Education Program celebrated an important victory Aug. 9 when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a precedential opinion affirming the grant of habeas relief to a client of the program, James Washington. A fourth-year evening student, Charles P. Sapienza, III, argued the case in the Pittsburgh federal courthouse on May 15.

“It is extremely rare for law students at any university in the nation to have the opportunity to argue a case in a United States Court of Appeals,” explained Dean Ken Gormley. “This is one step below the Supreme Court—it’s an opportunity many lawyers never have during their entire careers. It’s even more rare for a law student to prevail in such a high-level case and to see an opinion handed down that will serve as precedent for judges and litigants in the future.”

Sapienza is part of the law school’s Federal Practice Clinic, in which students work with supervising attorneys to provide legal representation to inmates and the underserved with appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and civil cases pending in the U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania.

As a footnote to its opinion, the Third Circuit thanked the Federal Practice Clinic for “ably” representing Washington in the appeal.

In the case, Washington v. Secretary, PA Department of Corrections; District Attorney of the County of Philadelphia; Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania, Appeal No. 12-2883, Washington filed a petition for habeas corpus challenging his state murder conviction on the ground that the trial court had violated his constitutional rights. Specifically, Washington argued that the trial court had violated his right to cross-examine a co-defendant with respect to a redacted (partially erased) version of the co-defendant’s prior statement to police. The Court of Appeals held that the statement so obviously referred to defendant Washington that the use of the redacted statement violated Washington’s Confrontation Clause rights under the Supreme Court’s prior decision in Bruton v. U.S. 391 U.S. 123 (1968).

“Programs such as our Federal Practice Clinic provide students with training to prepare them to be practice-ready the day they pass the bar examination,” said Associate Law Professor Laurie B. Serafino, who directs the Clinical Legal Education Program. “In fact, the American Bar Association is currently debating whether to require law students across the country to complete six-credit clinical or externship programs before they graduate. The proof is right here at Duquesne.”

Adjunct Law Professors Adrian N. Roe and Samuel H. Simon supervise the Federal Practice Clinic.

“We are extremely proud of Charles Sapienza and all of the students in our clinic who worked diligently to achieve this victory,” added Gormley.