Congratulations to Year Two students Kendrea Demeritte and Destiny McKinney on a Job Well Done!
Year Two law students, Kendrea Demeritte and Destiny McKinney, ably represented the Eugene Dupuch Law School at the Fall 2015 Caribbean Law Clinic (CLC) held November 11th thru 15th, 2015 at the Charlotte School of Law in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States of America.
The CLC is one of the programmes of the American Caribbean Law Initiative (ACLI) comprised of law schools in the Caribbean and United States of America. Other ACLI schools which participated in the Fall 2015 CLC were the Hugh Wooding Law School, Norman Manley Law School, Truman Bodden Law School (Cayman), Stetson School of Law, Nova South Eastern University School of Law and Florida Coastal Law School.
The CLC provides law students with the unique opportunity to interact with other students on a multi-cultural, multi-jurisdictional basis with the collaborative team objective of researching, analyzing and advising on topical legal problems encountered in the jurisdiction of the host school. The teams comprising of students representative of the member schools in ACLI then orally present their arguments before a panel of legal practitioners and receive both team and individual feedback.
At the Fall 2015 CLC our students tackled challenging issues. Ms. Demeritte, appearing on behalf of the prosecution, urged the panel to accept that there was no breach of the accused’s right to privacy and freedom from arbitrary government intrusions as guaranteed under the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution on the ground that the police had the right to conduct an investigatory stop of the accused as the legal threshold of reasonable suspicion had been satisfied. Ms. McKinney presented arguments on the constitutional rights of an asylum seeker under the 6th Amendment to the US Constitution to the due process of the law and to the effective assistance and advice of counsel, particularly in determining whether or not to accept a plea deal to a criminal charge which might adversely affect his prospects of successfully seeking asylum.
The panel was comprised of distinguished North Carolina attorneys Elizabeth Greenough, Carolyn A. Dubay and Josh Toman.
Elizabeth Greenough is an Assistant United States Attorney in the Western District of North Carolina who previously served as a staff attorney for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, Louisiana, as a judicial clerk in the Western District of New York and in private practice in Buffalo, New York.
Carolyn A. Dubay is an attorney and judicial policy expert and former law clerk in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York and a former Charlotte School of Law faculty member.
Josh Toman is a federal law clerk for Chief Justice Frank D. Whitney of the Western District of North Carolina who previously served as a supervising attorney and executive officer with the Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG), the legal branch of the United States military.
In the presence of their peers and under the scrutiny of anxious team advisors, Ms. Demeritte and Ms. McKinney withstood the pressure of intense questioning from the panel of experts.
They received positive individual feedback from the panel thereby affirming that they are being well-trained and equipped at EDLS to become competent and professional advocates. Ms. Demeritte was described as being “confident, poised and professional” and having a “really good court room presence”. Ms. McKinney was also commended for having an “engaging presence” and staying focused and confident as the panel probed the logic and merits of her arguments.
Proud to have accompanied the team were team advisor, Mrs. Raquel Williams and Principal of EDLS, Mrs. Tonya Bastian Galanis whom this year demitted the post of President of ACLI having served in that capacity for the past six years.