Forensic Seminar

Presenter Biographies

Linda Kenney Baden is one of the leading forensic trial attorneys in the United States. She appears regularly on television networks as a guest legal commentator. She has represented defendants accused of murder in many high profile matters including those of Michael Skakel (pretrial hearings), the NBA basketball star Jayson Williams, the first hung jury trial of music producer Phillip Spector and presently is the forensic attorney for Florida mother Casey Anthony. She is also the co-author of a bestseller thriller novel series including the most recent- "Skeleton Justice" - written with her husband Dr. Michael Baden.

Dr. Michael Baden is the former Chief Medical Examiner of New York City and is presently Co-Director of the New York State Police Medico-Legal Investigations Unit. He was Chairman of the Forensic Pathology Panel of the U.S. Congress Select Committee on Assassinations that re-investigated the deaths of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1970s. He was the forensic pathologist member of a team of U.S. forensic scientists asked by the Russian government to examine the newly found remains of Tsar Nicholas II, Alexandra and the Romanov family in Siberia in the 1990s. He has been an expert in multiple Iraq-related court martials in the United States and Camp Liberty, Baghdad. He has also been an expert in the investigations concerning Medgar Evers, John Belushi, Yankee Manager Billy Martin, Marlon Brando’s son Christian Brando, O.J. Simpson, Jayson Williams, Kobe Bryant, Robert Blake, and Las Vegas hotel owner Ted Binion. He is the host of the HBO "Autopsy" series which shows how the various forensic sciences assist in solving crimes . He has been author or co-author of more than 80 professional articles and books on aspects of forensic medicine and two popular non-fiction books "Unnatural Death, Confessions of a Medical Examiner" and "Dead Reckoning, the New Science of Catching Killers." He is also the author, with his wife, attorney Linda Kenney Baden, of two recent forensic thrillers, "Remains Silent" and "Skeleton Justice." He is the Forensic Science Contributor for FOX National News.

Jeanene Barrett is the Mitigation Specialist for the Center for Justice in Capital Cases at DePaul University College of Law. Jeanene joined the CJCC in March, 2008 after having worked within the child welfare field for over eleven years. She is also a Criminal Justice adjunct faculty member at Westwood College. Jeanene received her M.A. in Social Work from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, M.S. degree in Human Services Administration from Spertus College, and a B.S. in Criminal Justice from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

Carol A. Brook has been an attorney with the Federal Defender Program since her graduation from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1976. During that time she has served in every possible position – from Staff Attorney to Chief Appellate Attorney to Deputy Director to her current position of Executive Director. Carol has represented hundreds of clients in the Northern District of Illinois and more than she cares to count in the Seventh Circuit. She has written extensively on discovery, ethics and sentencing and argued the unconstitutionality of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines before the Federal District Court en banc. She is past-president of the National Association of Federal Defenders, serves on the Board of the Chicago Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, and is current president of the Illinois Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (IACDL). Carol is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including IACDL’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Chicago National Lawyers Guild’s Arthur Kinoy People’s Lawyer’s Award and Harvard Law School’s Wasserstein Public Interest Fellowship. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Thomas Corfman, a reporter, and a pet turtle named Seeley. She has twin 18-year old sons, Sam and Jack Corfman, who have left home to attend college.

David Klucas, JD is a criminal defense attorney from Toledo, Ohio, whose practice is limited to criminal defense. Mr. Klucas has tried over 75 felony cases to juries and three-judge panels, many of which were child sex cases, capital murder and non-capital murder. He is one of a small number of defense lawyers in Ohio who have obtained an acquittal on behalf of a capital murder defendant.

Andrea D. Lyon is a clinical professor of law, associate dean of Clinical Programs, and director of the Center for Justice in Capital Cases. Lyon received her undergraduate degree from Rutgers University and her law degree from Antioch School of Law. After graduating, she worked for the Cook County Public Defenders' Office in the felony trial division, post-conviction/habeas corpus unit, preliminary hearing/first municipal (misdemeanor) unit and the appeals division. Her last position there was chief of the Homicide Task Force, a 22-lawyer unit representing persons accused of homicides. She has tried over 130 homicide cases, both while in the Public Defender's Office and since. She has defended more than 30 potential capital cases at the trial level and has taken 19 through penalty phase; she won all 19. In 1990, she founded the Illinois Capital Resource Center and served as its director until joining the University of Michigan Law School faculty as an assistant clinical professor in 1995. A winner of the prestigious National Legal Aid and Defender Association's Reginald Heber Smith Award for best advocate for the poor in the country, she is a nationally recognized expert in the field of death penalty defense and a frequent continuing legal education teacher throughout the country. In 1998, she was awarded the Justice for All Award at the National Conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty. In 2003, she received the lifetime achievement award from the Illinois Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In 2005, she received the president’s commendation from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers for her death penalty work.

Michael O’Kelly has developed a unique and successful approach for the defense in analyzing a combination of cell tower data and cell phone forensics involved in a crime scene. Michael’s results in the cell phone / cell tower forensics field include:

• Iowa 2006: teacher sexual contact with student, exposure 30 years. Result > 5 years probation
• California 2009: terrorist text messages. Dismissal due to fabrication by victim
• California 2009: homicide. Hung jury. Plea to assault with deadly weapon. Credit for time served (pending trial)
• South Carolina 2009: homicide/armed robbery by gang member. Acquittal on all counts

Marc Pomerance has been working for the Illinois State Police at the Forensic Science Center at Chicago for 10 and a half years. During that time he has been a Forensic Scientist in the Firearms and Toolmark Section. He has received training from the Illinois State Police, Federal Bureau Of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in microscopic examinations, serial number restoration, distance determination, examining sound suppressor devices and full auto conversions and use of the Integrated Ballistic Identification System (IBIS). Mr. Pomerance has testified as an expert witness in both Federal and Circuit courts. He has also given lectures and tours of the Illinois State Police Forensic Science Center at Chicago to members of the Cook County States Attorney Office, Cook County Public Defenders Office, Cook County Medical Examiners Office and other local law enforcement officers and educators.

Dr. Leo J. Shea, III is Clinical Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Rusk Institute, a division of the New York University Langone Medical Center. Prior to his present work with tick-borne and immunological disorders, he was Assistant Director of the NYU Brain Injury Day Treatment Program. Dr. Shea is also president of Neuropsychological Evaluation and Treatment Services, P.C. with offices in New York City and Quincy, Massachusetts. His practice focuses on tick-borne diseases, traumatic brain injury, chronic illness, trauma and disaster management and provides cognitive remediation and psychotherapy.

Allen Sincox is a staff Attorney with the State Appellate Defender Death Penalty Trial Assistance Division. He joined that office at the end of 2002 after working for 26 years as an Assistant Cook County Public Defender, where he served for several years as one of the Supervisors of the Homicide Task Force. He has a particular interest in scientific evidence and has been involved in the litigation of cases involving DNA evidence since attempts to introduce such evidence in Illinois were first made.

Deja Vishny has practiced criminal defense for almost 30 years with the Wisconsin Office of the State Public Defender. She heads the Homicide Practice Group at the Milwaukee Trial Office and is also a training coordinator for that agency. She has studied police interrogation and attended the Reid school of Interrogation course in 2004. She is a nationally known lecturer on the subject of defending false confession cases, focusing on motion practice and cross examination of police interrogators and published an article on the subject in The Champion. She is currently writing a book on litigating suppression motions which will be published by James Publishing Company. She is a faculty member at the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia, and an Adjunct Professor of Trial Advocacy at Marquette Law School. She is on the Board of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Wisconsin State Bar Criminal Law Section.

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