Criminal Appeals Clinic

The Criminal Appeals Clinic recently won the reversal of a client's drug-possession conviction under the Fourth Amendment Joshua Thigpen, now a 3L student, drafted the opening brief under the supervision of Adjunct Professor Gil Lenz in Spring 2022 It was undisputed that the police had no probable cause or reasonable suspicion to believe the client had committed a crime, but the trial court found the police obtained the incriminating evidence during a "consensual" encounter with the client Joshua convinced the Appellate Court that the encounter was not consensual, and thus violated the Fourth Amendment, where the police approached the client when he was alone in an isolated location, then told him they had been watching him for an hour and believed he was engaged in criminal activity The Appellate Court agreed with Joshua that any subsequent agreement by the client to police requests was nonconsensual, requiring suppression of any evidence obtained This client will now have his only felony conviction removed from his record