Jeralyn Merritt
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Jeralyn Elise Merritt (b. New York City, September 28, 1949) is a criminal defense attorney who practices in Denver, Colorado. In 1996 and 1997, she served as one of six principal trial lawyers for Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing case, after the venue moved to Denver.[1]
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[edit] Education
Merritt attended Case Western Reserve University and was graduated with a B.A. from the University of Michigan, where she majored in political science. In 1973 she received a J.D. degree from the University of Denver Law School, where she returned to teach "Wrongful Convictions" and "Criminal Defense" as Lecturer in Law from 2000 to 2003.[2]
[edit] Achievements
In 1995 she received the first annual Marshall Stern Award for Outstanding Legislative Achievement, from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), a professional organization for which she also served the NACDL as a member of the Board of Directors (1995-2001), secretary (2002-2003), and treasurer (2003-2004), and as the chair, co-chair, or vice-chair of numerous affiliated committees and projects, including NACDL vice-chair of The Innocence Project, founded and directed by fellow NACDL members Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, from 1998 to 2002.[3]
[edit] Areas of practice
Her practice is "limited to criminal defense and related forfeitures, with an emphasis on complex federal drug and white collar crimes."[4]
[edit] Seminars
She is also a specialist in the use of the internet as a legal research resource and presents seminars and speeches on its use in investigation, on handwriting analysis, and on other matters pertaining to her legal specialties.[5]
[edit] Publications
[edit] Book
She is co-author of An Analysis of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 published by LexisNexis in 2002.[6]
[edit] Internet resource and blog
She is the creator of CrimeLynx, an internet resource for legal professionals and the general community, and a blog called TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime, which is a three-time winner of a Koufax Award for best single-issue blog (2002, 2003, and 2004––in 2004 TalkLeft shared with Grits for Breakfast), and, most recently, a winner of the Weblog Awards for "The Best of the Top 250 Blogs" (2006).[7]
[edit] Accredited press blogger for the Libby trial
With Jane Hamsher (creator of Firedoglake) and Marcy Wheeler (author of the recently-published book Anatomy of Deceit), Jeralyn Merritt also provided ground-breaking coverage of the United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby", for which they were among the first bloggers to receive fully-accredited media passes to a U.S. federal trial and during which they also appeared on PoliticsTV.com for a round up summarizing each day's trial events. Her entries on the Libby trial appeared in Firedoglake and The Huffington Post, as well as at TalkLeft.
- See main article: United States v. Libby#Press coverage of the trial
[edit] Other publication venues
She also blogs regularly at The Huffington Post (since August 2005) and for Elevated Voices, published in 5280: Denver's Mile High Magazine, and, from time to time, as a guest blogger for Eric Alterman, senior fellow and Altercation weblogger for Media Matters for America (formerly hosted on MSNBC.com from 2002 to 2006). She serves occasionally as a guest columnist for newspapers such as the Rocky Mountain News and as a guest moderator for online chats on legal cases for The Washington Post.[8]
According to Dave Kopel, research director for the Independence Institute of Golden, Colorado, and a lawyer who writes a column for The Rocky Mountain News, in his commentary on the Denver, Colorado, trial of former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio:
Denver criminal defense lawyer and civil liberties advocate Jeralyn Merritt runs the TalkLeft.com weblog, which sets a great example of how to write about legal issues in an intelligent way while still connecting with readers who haven't gone to law school. Merritt has been live-blogging the Nacchio trial for 5280 magazine's weblog, Elevated Voices. She provides a running semi-transcript of courtroom events, in far greater detail than you can find anywhere else while the court is in session. She doesn't attend every day of the trial, but when she's there, Elevated Voices is the best Web site for up-to-the minute coverage.[9]
[edit] Media experience
Since 1996, she has served as a legal analyst for and commentator on television news programs. She served as a television legal analyst for MSNBC (1997-1999) and presently continues as a guest legal commentator on television for NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, Court TV, and Fox News, presenting her perspective as a criminal defense attorney on many contemporary legal cases being covered on several major national media news programs.[10]
[edit] Notes
- ^ United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, "Petition for Writ of Mandamus of Petitioner-Defendant, Timothy James McVeigh and Brief in Support, March 25, 1997", Case No. 96-CR-68-M, accessed 1 March 2007.
- ^ Jeralyn E. Merritt, Esq., "Attorney Profile".
- ^ Award cited via the link to "Marshall Stern Legislative Achievement Award", "Awards", National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, accessed 1 March 2007; cf. links to "Achievements" and "Professional Activities", LexisNexis lawyers.com firm website for "Jeralyn E. Merritt".
- ^ Jeralyn E. Merritt, Esq., "Firm Overview", lawyers.com website, accessed 2 March 2007 (throughout).
- ^ "Seminars".
- ^ She is cited as an "expert" on the USA Patriot Act of 2001 by Christopher Reed, "Caught in the Act", The Guardian 7 October 2003, accessed 1 March 2007.
- ^ "Best of the Top 250 Blogs", weblogawards.org 18 December 2006, accessed 1 March 2007. "The Weblog Awards are the world's largest blog competition, with over 525,000 votes cast in the 2006 edition for finalists in 45 categories. Nominations ended November 24, and voting was conducted between December 7 and December 15 [2006]. Final results [were] announced Dec. 18, 2006." TalkLeft came in first in its category with "25.15 % (3495)" of the total votes cast.
- ^ Announcements posted and archived at TalkLeft (June 2002 to March 2007).
- ^ Dave Kopel, "Kopel: Internet Humming with Nacchio Trial Coverage: Blogs, Web Sites Rife with Insight, Info", Rocky Mountain News March 24, 2007, Opinion, accessed March 24, 2007.
- ^ "News Clips".
[edit] References
- Kopel, Dave. "Kopel: Internet Humming with Nacchio Trial Coverage: Blogs, Web Sites Rife with Insight, Info". Rocky Mountain News March 24, 2007, Opinion. Accessed March 24, 2007.
- Mailman, Stanley, Jeralyn E. Merritt, Theresa M. B. Van Vliet, and Stephen Yale-Loehr. Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT Act) Act of 2001: An Analysis. Newark, NJ and San Francisco, CA: Matthew Bender & Co., Inc. (a member of the LexisNexis Group), 2002. (Rel.1-3/02 Pub. 1271)
[edit] External links
- Colorado Supreme Court - Attorney Information Search for "Jeralyn Elise Merritt" (Active status; Registration #5288).
- CrimeLynx – "The Criminal Practitioner's Guide through the Internet" created by Jeralyn Merritt. Incl. hyperlinked "legal resource center for the criminal defense practitioner" and "criminal justice center for professionals and the community".
- Jeralyn E. Merritt – Firm website hosted by LexisNexis, Martindale-Hubbell, at lawyers.com (legal directory).
- Jeralyn Merritt at The Huffington Post – personal blog.
- The Libby Trial V-Log – Video clips of Jeralyn Merritt, Jane Hamsher, and Marcy Wheeler, and video clip about TalkLeft archived via video.google.com.
- TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime – "The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news" and personal blog of Jeralyn Merritt.
