About the Author
John Wesley Hall,
Jr. :: ForHall@aol.com John Wesley Hall, Jr. is a criminal defense lawyer who practices in Little Rock, Arkansas. His criminal practice includes trials, appeals, and post-conviction litigation. As NACDL's original ethics advisor, he has been consulted by at least 900 criminal lawyers seeking confidential counsel on ethics issues in the U.S., Military Courts, Canada, and international tribunals. A student of the law of legal ethics in criminal defense practice and prosecutorial misconduct for over 30 years, he has argued twice in the U.S. Supreme Court, authored numerous amicus briefs in the Supreme Court for NACDL and others, and he has appeared in four federal circuit courts. Licensed to practice law for since 1973, he has handled over 250 jury trials and over 200 appeals, having made at least 80 oral arguments, two in the U.S. Supreme Court. He concentrates on cases involving search and seizure issues, particularly drugs, sex, violence and computer crime. He also handles street crime, white collar crime, homicide, war crimes, and death penalty cases. Professional Responsibility of the Criminal Lawyer was first published in 1987 and the second edition was published in 1996. He received his law degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1973. Before beginning his criminal defense practice, Mr. Hall was a deputy prosecuting attorney in Little Rock, and he was head of the office's Career Criminal Division at the time he entered private practice in 1979. He also is licensed to practice in New York, Nevada, Tennessee, and the District of Columbia, seven federal district courts, as well as seven of the thirteen federal appellate circuits, and the International Criminal Court. He was involved in the defense of a Sierra Leone government official accused of war crimes in putting down that country's civil war on trial before the Special Court of Sierra Leone, an international war crimes tribunal. That trial kept him in West Africa on third months, 2004-06. He is a President Elect and a Life Member of the 13,000 member (with 13,000 members and 90 affilate organizaions with a total of about 35,000 members) of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), was the Chair of NACDL's Ethics Advisory Committee 1990-2005. He Previously served as NACDL Secretary for 2003-04, Treasurer for 2004-05, Second Vice-President for 2005-06, and First Vice President for 2006-07. He received the NACDL's prestigious Robert C. Heeney Memorial Award in 2002, NACDL's highest honor for service to the criminal defense bar and NACDL. He is also one of NACDL's representattives to the ABA task force working on the fouth edition of the ABA Standards for the Prosecution Function and Defense Function. He was elected by defense counsel in the International Criminal Court in The Hague as a permanent member of the attorney Disciplinary Appeals Board of the ICC for a four year term, 2007-10. The Board consists of two lawyers alleged by the lawyers on the Registry and three ICC judges appointed by the President of the Court.He is also on the Board of Directors of International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association and one of the principal drafters of the International Criminal Bar's Code of Conduct. He is peer review listed in The Best Lawyers in America, and A-V rated by Martindale-Hubbell. He is also a Fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers, and a Past President of the Arkansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers receiving its Champion of Justice Award in 2003 and Humanitarian Award in 2005. He is regular CLE speaker on lawyers' ethics for criminal defense lawyers, having done at least 120 CLEs in about 35 states, Québec, Alberta, and The Hague. He has also appeared as an expert witness on the question of legal ethics of criminal defense lawyers, criminal defense malpractice, ineffective assistance of counsel, and prosecutorial misconduct from both sides. He has been an occasional Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law and a lecturer at UALR's Graduate School of Criminal Justice. He is also writes a blog on the Fourth Amendment updated daily, depending on his trial schedule, www.FourthAmendment.com, the author of Search and Seizure (3d ed. 2000) published by Lexis Law Publishing (fourth edition forthcoming) and Trial Handbook for Arkansas Lawyers (2006 ed.) (5th edition). He is in complete denial about the possibility of burnout. See § 34:7. |
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U.S. Ethics Codes Research Links: Defense organizations: Defense organizations: Law Blogs: Steve
Dallas, Esq. "A lawyer shall represent a client zealously within the bounds of
the law." "The very premise of our adversary system of criminal justice is that partisan
advocacy on both sides of a case will best promote the ultimate objective that
the guilty be convicted and the innocent go free." "The right to the effective assistance of counsel is thus the right of the
accused to require the prosecution's case to survive the crucible of meaningful
adversarial testing. When a true adversarial criminal trial has been conducted
... the kind of testing envisioned by the Sixth Amendment has occurred. But
if the process loses its character as a confrontation between adversaries, the
constitutional guarantee is violated." "The right to offer the testimony of witnesses, and to compel their attendance,
if necessary, is in plain terms the right to present a defense, the right to
present the defendant's version of the facts as well as the prosecution's to
the jury so it may decide where the truth lies. Just as an accused has the right
to confront the prosecution's witnesses for the purpose of challenging their
testimony, he has the right to present his own witnesses to establish a defense.
This right is a fundamental element of due process of law." "[T]he Constitution guarantees criminal defendants 'a meaningful opportunity
to present a complete defense.'" “If you’ve got the right lawyer with you, we’ve got the
best legal system in the world.” —Cynthia Roseberry |