The National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA) has selected the Office of the Appellate Defender (OAD) to serve as a host site for NLADA’s inaugural AmeriCorps VISTA program. This initiative is designed to train AmeriCorps VISTA members in best practices in Community Oriented Defense by placing them in public defense agencies to help establish…

On June 7, 2018, the First Department vacated Mr. Travis Breckenridge’s first degree assault conviction after concluding that “the court’s jury charge failed to convey that an acquittal on the top count of attempted second-degree murder based on a finding of justification would preclude consideration of the count of first-degree assault.” On May 31, 2018, the First Department…

Today, the Open Society Foundations (OSF) announced that OAD’s President and Attorney-in-Charge, Christina Swarns, is one of eight new leaders of nonprofit organizations who has been awarded a New Executive Fund grant to “help implement their vision of change.”  You can read more about this exciting grant here.