By Brittany Weston, President, ACLU at Charlotte Law
The ACLU chapter at Charlotte School of Law, along with local chapters of the American Constitution Society and the Criminal Law Society, was recently awarded the Charlotte Law Student Service Department’s Synergy Event of the Year Award for jointly hosting and organizing a November 2013 event recognizing the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Gideon v. Wainwright.
In Gideon, the Supreme Court ruled that all criminal defendants are entitled to have an attorney, and that states must provide defendants with attorneys if they cannot afford their own counsel.
The November 2013 event featured three Charlotte Law professors who discussed the positive implications Gideon has had on the criminal justice system in the past 50 years and the work that is still left to be done. The panel consisted of a current juvenile defense attorney and two formed public defenders. The speakers of the event went in-depth on what we, as law students and future lawyers, can do to help improve the rights Gideon afforded all U.S. citizens and how, in practice, there is much to be done to help the indigent criminals of today. More than 70 Charlotte Law students made it out to the event to participate in an open discussion with the professors conducted in the last half hour of the hour and a half event.
Officers for ACLU at CharlotteLaw were Brittany Weston, President (pictured), April Geer, Vice President, Sally Santiago, Secretary (pictured), and Lauren Rickman, Treasurer.