Individual Client Representations & Litigation

The FCJC maintains a commitment to representing individual indigent clients in federal criminal cases. Many of our filings involved comprehensive legal and social science research on issues relevant to other cases. Please do not hesitate to reach out about any of the filings below.

Selected Filings

Motions to Suppress

• Led by Professor Miller, an FCJC team successfully suppressed a government witness’s purported identification of an object—a firearm—ostensibly used in an offense. The motion walks through the extensive body of law and social science research on eyewitness identification of individuals, and shows where and how the same principles apply to eyewitness identification of objects. To the FCJC’s knowledge, this motion was the only successful such motion in the country at the time.
• Led by Professor Zunkel, FCJC students filed a motion to suppress statements elicited when law enforcement came to our client’s home, took photographs of attached garage, interrogated our client while he was in a wheelchair, and threatened to report our client to his pretrial services officer. After filing the motion, the government dismissed the charge.

First Amendment/Motion to Dismiss

Under the supervision of Professor Miller, a team of FCJC students filed a motion to dismiss challenging an indictment filed under the federal impersonation statute, 18 U.S.C. § 912, as unconstitutional under the First and Fifth Amendments. Parts of this challenge were ultimately endorsed on appeal by the Seventh Circuit.  

Deliberate Ignorance Motion in Limine

Under the supervision of Professor Miller, FCJC students filed a motion that ultimately prohibited the jury from convicting the client for “deliberate ignorance” of drug trafficking. After reading the student team’s motions, the government first agreed that it would not mention deliberate ignorance during opening arguments. Then, before closing arguments, the court ruled that the government could not present a deliberate ignorance theory of knowledge to the jury at all. The government was instead forced to argue that the client actually knew about the drugs.

Voir Dire

Under the supervision of Professor Miller, FCJC students filed briefing linking the law of voir dire to social science supporting the use of attorney-conducted voir dire and a juror questionnaire, and opposing judges’ use of the so-called “magic question” to rehabilitate jurors.

First Amendment Appeal and Petition for a Writ of Certiorari

A team of FCJC students supervised by Professor Miller submitted first a Seventh Circuit brief and then a related petition for a writ of certiorari arguing that the federal impersonation statute, 18 U.S.C. § 912, has been interpreted too expansively or, alternatively, that it violated the First Amendment’s prohibition on criminalizing false speech. The filings highlight the three-way circuit split over the statute’s meaning, and the ways in which the Seventh Circuit’s expansive interpretation could criminalize everyday conduct protected by the First Amendment.

Habeas Appeal

Under the supervision of Professor Zunkel, a team of FCJC students litigated a Seventh Circuit appeal on behalf of a stash house client who was serving an illegal sentence. Although we ultimately did not prevail because of a procedural bar, the Seventh Circuit agreed with our argument that our client’s Rule 60(b) motion was not a second or successive habeas petition, which created good law for future habeas litigants.