FAMU trains students for cap case work.

After Justices Barbara Pariente and Raoul Cantero blasted the low quality of some private registry attorneys handling death penalty appeals, Roger Maas, executive director of the Commission on Capital Cases, appealed to law school deans for help.

One school in particular--Florida A&M University College of Law--showed great interest in educating its students about the death penalty, Maas said.

Within a year, in fall 2006, Assistant Professor Karin Moore was offering death penalty seminar. And this spring, FAMU offers a full-immersion 40-houra-week clinic that puts students to work at the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel offices in Ft. Lauderdale or Tampa assisting on death penalty appeals.

The clinic is the first of its kind in Florida law schools, Maas said, and is work in progress. One goal is to place students with circuit judges in Central Florida to assist the court in reviewing issues in Rule 3.851 cases, routinely filed in death penalty cases.

"As the state continues with capital punishment, we must do all possible to make certain competent counsel is available to those subject to the ultimate penalty," Chief Justice Fred Lewis said. "The legislative and executive branches have structured a CCRC program, and we must respond to fill the positions with competent lawyers and have a reserve available in the event of conflict circumstances."

According to Maas, the new education initiative at FAMU is making great strides toward that end to produce new lawyers familiar with the complexities of death penalty law.

The seminar, a prerequisite for the clinic, has a maximum enrollment of 20 second- and third-year students. Topics for discussion include the history and purposes of the death penalty, public opinion on the death penalty, leading U.S. and Florida Supreme Court cases, and various death penalty laws across the country.

Students study individual sentencing, arbitrariness, proportionality, and racial issues, with a special emphasis on prosecutor and defense duties. Also covered are ethical responsibilities at trial and in post-conviction proceedings, with an emphasis on attorney error.

Other topics studied are death-qualification of jurors, aggravating and mitigating factors, victim impact, Ring issues, and current topics of interest.

Professor Moore, who joined the FAMU faculty in 2004, draws on personal experience to teach her students. In private practice for 22 years in Gainesville, as well as working as an assistant public defender, she has tried nine murder cases and two were death penalty cases.

She also brings experienced speakers to the classroom to put issues and case law into context. In the fall semester, Eighth Circuit State Attorney William Cervone and Cass Castillo, from the 10th Circuit State Attorney's Office, provided the state's perspective, while Deborah Goins, from the 10th Circuit Public Defender's Office, and Tricia Jenkins, formerly with the Fifth and Eighth circuit public defenders' offices, gave the defense perspective.

Sharing the view from the bench was 18th Circuit Judge O.H. Eaton, Jr., who teaches capital litigation at the National Judicial College and the Florida College of Advanced Judicial Studies. Judge Eaton authored a chapter in the recent ABA report on the state of Florida's death penalty laws and has written jury instructions for death penalty cases.