Last week was the annual seminar sponsored by the National College for DUI Defense in Las Vegas. I have attended the seminar for years, and it is consistently a great seminar. It doesn’t hurt that it’s in Vegas, but what really makes it great is the caliber of presenters.
The seminar is co-sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), and current NACDL president Steven Benjamin gave a great presentation about the report from the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) report: “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward”. Other outstanding speakers included Troy McKinney on the topic of blood testing discovery and William “Bubba” Head on the issue of winning the unwinnable case by proving police perjury.
The highlight of the seminar for me was the presentation by F. Lee Bailey. Bailey is literally a living legend, having defended such high profile clients as Sam Sheppard (“The Fugitive”), Ernest Medina (the My Lai Massacre), Patty Hearst (bank robberies after being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army), and O.J. Simpson (no parenthetical explanation required!).