Description

Developing and presenting mitigation evidence on behalf of our clients is a critical part of our ethical duty as defense attorneys. Our clients’ stories are unique and important, but how can we determine what mitigation evidence will be most persuasive to judges and juries? At this CLE, you will learn what research shows about the most effective mitigation presentations in criminal cases and refresh your knowledge on our ethical obligations when it comes to mitigation.

Dr. John B. Meixner, Jr. joined the University of Georgia School of Law faculty in 2022 teaching classes in evidence and criminal law.

Meixner’s research focuses on criminal law (especially sentencing), evidence, and the intersection of law and neuroscience. He is currently working on a long-term empirical project examining how mitigating facts about criminal defendants’ backgrounds impact judges’ sentencing decisions and prosecutors’ charging and plea-bargaining decisions. Other current projects focus on how judges understand and interpret statistical and technical evidence, and the relationship between neuroscience and the law. He is also a member of the Systematic Content Analysis of Litigation Events (SCALES) project, working to develop tools to allow large-scale analysis of criminal court records. He has also been interviewed and featured in numerous mainstream outlets, including The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Time, CNN, NBC News, NBC 11 Alive and CBS Atlanta News Now.

Before entering academia, Meixner served as an assistant United States attorney in the Eastern District of Michigan for almost six years, working in the major crimes unit and the appellate division. He led over 100 grand jury investigations, briefed and argued dozens of appeals and first-chaired multiple jury trials. He also worked closely with the office’s “Restart” program, designed to provide alternatives to incarceration and make criminal justice more equitable. Before working as a federal prosecutor, he was a general litigation associate in Schiff Hardin’s Ann Arbor office. Immediately after law school, he served as a judicial clerk for Judge Paul V. Niemeyer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Chief Judge Gerald E. Rosen of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

He earned his bachelor’s degree with highest honors and distinction from the University of Michigan in 2006 and his J.D. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 2013. He graduated magna cum laude from the School of Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the Northwestern University Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif.

Dr. Lisa Bell Holleran is an Assistant Professor of criminal justice at Arkansas State University-Beebe, and she has previously taught at St. Edward’s University, Concordia University, and Texas State University. She has a Ph.D in Criminal Justice from Texas State University and has devoted much of her academic research to the effect of mitigation in criminal cases, particularly capital cases, and the ethical role of defense attorney to present mitigation. Prior to her career in academia, Lisa worked with nonprofits and public policy organizations in the criminal justice community.