LAW 8053 :
Externship:Villanova Captl Def

Externship: Villanova Capital Defense Prerequisite: Death Penalty: Theory and Practice (LAW 7103) Note: Registration for this course is no longer completed through NOVASIS. Visit the Externship section of our website to apply with the Director of Experiential Learning. Students in this Externship will work 16 hours per week with attorneys from the Capital Habeas Corpus Unit of the Federal Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on death penalty cases in current litigation. Students will be part of a criminal defense team that includes lawyers, investigators, and paralegals working on post-conviction and habeas corpus challenges to capital convictions and death sentences. Students will assist with research and writing for motions, briefs, and legal memoranda and may have the opportunity to help prepare and/or observe evidentiary hearings and oral arguments in court, assist in investigation, and meet with death sentenced prisoners and their families. (In the past this has included observing United States Supreme Court arguments.) The externship offers a unique and significant opportunity to participate in cutting-edge constitutional litigation, but requires a commitment to the defense of death-sentenced prisoners. Students must successfully complete the Death Penalty Theory and Practice seminar as a prerequisite to participation in the externship. Credits earned in the externship will count toward the limitations on clinical and externship credits, and the rule limiting students to only one externship or clinic in any given semester. There is no regularly scheduled class time for this course. Meetings will take place in the Defender's Office and will be scheduled by the professors in consultation with the students.