Explosion of digital information reshapes training program for judges
Judges from across the country learn how technology is affecting law during a training conference hosted by the law school’s National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law. In all, 47 judges attended the conference.
“The digital data generated in 2006 alone is equal to 161 billion gigabytes. That is like 12 stacks of books reaching from the Earth to the sun,” said Tom Clancy, professor of law and director of the National Center of Justice and the Rule of Law at UM. The NCJRL is leading the charge in determining how law is being affected by the digital age.
In fall 2009, NCJRL was awarded a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to expand its training on the prosecution of Internet crimes against children, which today often involves digital evidence. The grant will fund four training courses for judges in conjunction with the National Judicial College.
“A main feature of the grant is the provision of 160 full scholarships to judges, including travel and other expenses,” Clancy said. “This is the first time that the OJJDP has ever funded judicial training.”
Clancy said that, when the center started the training for judges five years ago, very few participants were seeing digital evidence in cases.
However, this year, only one of the 47 judges who came to Oxford for the fall conference had not dealt with a digital evidence case.
Steve Cranfill, a Wyoming district court judge, said he would recommend the course to anyone.
“And I already have,” he added.
Cranfill also interviewed several Ole Miss law students while he was in Oxford for the conference.
“One side benefit was posting for a law clerk position to begin in the fall of 2010,” he said. “I thought I would get two or three interested students. Sixteen—10 percent of the third-year class—submitted applications. I was very impressed with all of the applicants. Who knows, a Wyoming judge may end up with an Ole Miss clerk.
The new judicial courses will be hosted in addition to training courses the center offers for prosecutors in conjunction with the National Association of Attorneys General.
In addition, the center staff hosts a training for law enforcement in the areas of Internet crimes and searches; operates a number of clinical programs for students; publishes timely resources on Fourth Amendment topics; and regularly travels around the country presenting research on Internet crime topics.
Steven Bradbury, a superior court judge in Lassen County, Calif., said the NCJRL Fourth Amendment course is one of the best two courses he has taken during his 23 years on the California bench.
“Although I am nearing the end of my judicial career, this program engendered the same kind of excitement in anticipating the unique search and seizure issues coming to the next generation in our electronic age as when I was in law school considering the future of the ‘pat-down’ search authorized by Terry v. Ohio,” he said. “This definitely is a must-take course for the general jurisdiction judge.”
Clinical programs provide win-win of
practical experience, free legal help
“Unlike medical schools, the traditional law school model only provided legal education in doctrinal theory, but did not offer students an opportunity to complete a period of ‘live client’ training designed to merge legal principles with practical application, thereby forming a sound basis to begin a career as a lawyer,” Philip Broadhead, clinical law professor and director of the Criminal Appeals Clinic in the NCJRL, said.
Although the primary goal of clinical programs is to offer law students a “learning by doing” experience, Broadhead said the clinical structure also provides service to both the judiciary and to those citizens who would otherwise have to go without adequate representation because of their economic circumstance.
The Criminal Appeals Clinic offers advanced appellate training to third-year law students.
In the past six years, 12 law graduates who participated in the Criminal Appeals Clinic have been appointed to clerkships.
In addition, the NCJRL operates a Prosecutorial Externship Program for students that combines both classroom and field-based components designed to prepare law students for careers as prosecutors. In the field, students gain practical experience through placement as externs with local, state and federal prosecuting offices. Students are also placed with state and national prosecution-related agencies.
