Shon Hopwood

Last updated

Shon Hopwood
Born
Shon Robert Hopwood

(1975-06-11) June 11, 1975 (age 48)
David City, Nebraska, U.S.
Education Bellevue University (BS)
University of Washington (JD)
Georgetown University (LLM)
OccupationLaw professor
Notable workPetition for writ of certiorari in Fellers v. United States
Law Man: My Story of Robbing Banks, Winning Supreme Court Cases, and Finding Redemption
SpouseAnn Marie Metzner [1]
Children2 [1]

Shon Robert Hopwood (born June 11, 1975) is an American appellate lawyer and professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. Hopwood became well-known as a jailhouse lawyer who served time in prison for bank robbery. While in prison, he started spending time in the law library, and became an accomplished United States Supreme Court practitioner by the time he left in 2009. [2]

Contents

Early life

Hopwood is the son of Robert Mark Hopwood [3] and Becky Richards, who raised him in a Christian home. [4] He grew up in David City, Nebraska, approximately an hour's drive northwest of Lincoln, Nebraska. [5] Hopwood is the eldest of five siblings. [4] Hopwood excelled on standardized tests. [4] He was a high school basketball standout, earning himself a scholarship to Midland University in Fremont, Nebraska. [5] After Hopwood realized he was a mediocre talent in basketball, he became disillusioned and did not go to classes. [4] [5]

After leaving school, Hopwood joined the United States Navy. He was stationed in the Persian Gulf. [4] While in the Navy, Hopwood guarded warships with shoulder-mounted Stinger missiles. [4] He almost died from acute pancreatitis in a Bahrain hospital, which prompted his discharge from the Navy. [4]

Bank robbery

Hopwood pleaded guilty on October 28, 1998, to robbing several banks in Nebraska. [6] Federal judge Richard G. Kopf of the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska sentenced Hopwood to 12 years and three months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release and ordered $134,544 in restitution. [6] Kopf was stunned by Hopwood's later transformation, saying, "my gut told me that [he] was a punk—all mouth, and very little else. My viscera was wrong." In Kopf's own opinion, "Hopwood proves that my sentencing instincts suck." [7]

Jailhouse lawyer

Hopwood served his prison sentence at Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin. [8] While at Pekin, he spent five weeks in solitary confinement, and criticized the practice once he got out. [8]

He prepared his first petition for certiorari for a fellow inmate on a prison typewriter in 2002. [2] Since Hopwood was not a lawyer, the only name on the brief was that of the other prisoner, John Fellers. [2] Once the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, he worked with former United States Solicitor General Seth Waxman in preparing the case. [2] Waxman stated that the petition for writ of certiorari was probably one of the best he had ever seen. [2] The court agreed to hear the case, Fellers v. United States . [2] The court, in a 9–0 decision, found that police had acted unconstitutionally in questioning Fellers, who had been convicted of a drug conspiracy. Fellers's sentence was ultimately reduced by four years.

In 2005, the Supreme Court granted a second cert petition prepared by Hopwood, vacating a lower court decision and sending the case back for a fresh look. [2] Hopwood has also helped inmates from Indiana, Michigan and Nebraska get sentence reductions of 3 to 10 years from lower courts. [2]

He also won honorable mention in the PEN American Center 2008 Prison Writing contest. [9] [10]

Hopwood was released from the custody of the Bureau of Prisons on April 9, 2009. [11] In 2010, he was working at Cockle Printing in Omaha, Nebraska, a leading printer of Supreme Court briefs. [2]

Hopwood holds a Bachelor of Science from Bellevue University in Bellevue, Nebraska, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Washington School of Law, where he was a Gates Public Service Law Scholar. [12] [13] He served as a law clerk for Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after he graduated from law school. [14]

On September 4, 2014, the Supreme Court of Washington approved the recommendation made by the Character and Fitness Committee of the Washington State Bar Association, permitting Hopwood to take the Washington bar examination, and to become an attorney if he passed. [13] [15] His ability to become of a member of the Washington State Bar Association was named one of the National Law Journal 's 14 memorable Supreme Court of the United States stories of 2014. [16] In 2015, Hopwood became a licensed lawyer in the state of Washington. [17]

In 2015, Hopwood accepted a position as a graduate teaching fellow in Georgetown University Law Center's Appellate Litigation Clinic, where he was pursuing a Master of Laws degree. [18] In 2017, Hopwood became a professor of law at Georgetown. He hired 2020 Georgetown Law graduate Tiffany Trump as his research assistant. [19] [20]

Writings and views

Hopwood's memoir, Law Man: My Story of Robbing Banks, Winning Supreme Court Cases, and Finding Redemption, [21] co-written with Dennis Burke, was published in August 2012. In the memoir, Hopwood details both his life as a jailhouse lawyer and his romance with his wife, Ann Marie Hopwood, to whom Hopwood wrote during eight years of his imprisonment. Law Man received critical acclaim from a number of book reviewers. [22] [23] [24]

Hopwood is a criminal justice advocate, and he has written about the need for federal sentencing and prison reform. [25] [26] Hopwood told an ACLU event that his home state of Nebraska should reform sentencing guidelines for prisoners, keep good time credits and not build a new prison. [8]

Contributions to scholarly journals

In the media

Hopwood has been profiled by The New York Times , NPR, and other media. He was featured on a 60 Minutes segment in 2017 and repeated in 2019, where he was interviewed by Steve Kroft. [33]

Related Research Articles

Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires U.S. states to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who are unable to afford their own. The case extended the right to counsel, which had been found under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to impose requirements on the federal government, by imposing those requirements upon the states as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georgetown University Law Center</span> Private law school in Washington, D.C., US

The Georgetown University Law Center is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment, with over 2000 students. It frequently receives the most full-time applications of any other law school in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Procedures of the Supreme Court of the United States</span>

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. The procedures of the Court are governed by the U.S. Constitution, various federal statutes, and its own internal rules. Since 1869, the Court has consisted of one chief justice and eight associate justices. Justices are nominated by the president, and with the advice and consent (confirmation) of the U.S. Senate, appointed to the Court by the president. Once appointed, justices have lifetime tenure unless they resign, retire, or are removed from office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard G. Kopf</span> American judge (born 1946)

Richard George Kopf is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska.

Jailhouse lawyer is a colloquial term in North American English to refer to an inmate in a jail or other prison who, though usually never having practiced law nor having any formal legal training, informally assists other inmates in legal matters relating to their sentence or to their conditions in prison. Sometimes, they also assist other inmates in civil matters of a legal nature. The ability that inmates have to help other illiterate inmates file petition for post conviction relief was first recognized in Johnson v. Avery. This same case also determined that unless states provide reasonable alternative, they must permit such action by jailhouse lawyers.

Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361 (1989), is a case decided by the United States Supreme Court concerning the constitutionality of the United States Sentencing Commission.

In United States law, habeas corpus is a recourse challenging the reasons or conditions of a person's confinement under color of law. A petition for habeas corpus is filed with a court that has jurisdiction over the custodian, and if granted, a writ is issued directing the custodian to bring the confined person before the court for examination into those reasons or conditions. The Suspension Clause of the United States Constitution specifically included the English common law procedure in Article One, Section 9, clause 2, which demands that "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

Gregory Reyes is an American businessman who most recently served as the chief executive officer (CEO) for Brocade Communications. He is the first person to have been convicted for fraudulent backdating of corporate stock options.

Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510 (2003), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court spelled out standards for "effectiveness" in the constitutional right to legal counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Previously the court had determined that the Sixth Amendment included the right to "effective assistance" of legal counsel, but it did not specify what constitutes "effective", thus leaving the standards for effectiveness vague. In Wiggins v. Smith, the court set forth the American Bar Association Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases Guideline 11.8.6.(1989), as a specific guideline by which to measure effectiveness and competence of legal counsel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin</span> Medium-security United States prison in Illinois

The Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin is a medium-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Illinois. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility also has an adjacent satellite prison camp which houses minimum-security female offenders.

Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436 (1970), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that "when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit." The Double Jeopardy Clause prevents a state from relitigating a question already decided in favor of a defendant at a previous trial. Here, the guarantee against double jeopardy enforceable through the Fifth Amendment provided that where the defendant was acquitted of robbing one victim, the government could not prosecute the criminal defendant in a second trial for a different victim in the same robbery.

The Center on the Administration of Criminal Law is a think-tank dedicated to the promotion of good government and prosecution practices in criminal matters. Its work has been the subject of a feature story in the Associated Press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy B. Dyk</span> American judge (born 1937)

Timothy Belcher Dyk is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2009 term per curiam opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States</span>

The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nineteen per curiam opinions during its 2009 term, which began on October 5, 2009, and concluded October 3, 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching of Ed Johnson</span> African American who was lynched in the U.S.

On March 19, 1906, Ed Johnson, a young African American man, was murdered by a lynch mob in his home town of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He had been wrongfully sentenced to death for the rape of Nevada Taylor, but Justice John Marshall Harlan of the United States Supreme Court had issued a stay of execution. To prevent delay or avoidance of execution, a mob broke into the jail where Johnson was held, and abducted and lynched him from the Walnut Street Bridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony P. Capozzi</span> American lawyer (born 1945)

Anthony Patrick "Tony" Capozzi is an American trial attorney and political consultant and participant. During his legal career, he has worked as a solo practitioner, supervising Assistant United States Attorney, adjunct professor of law, and law clerk to Omer Poos of the United States District Court in Springfield, Illinois. He also served as the 79th President to the State Bar of California. He owns and practices law at the Law Offices of Anthony P. Capozzi and serves on the California Commission on Judicial Performance, a post California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed him to in 2010. Since 2005, Capozzi has been the exclusive legal and political consultant for KFSN-TV ABC 30.

Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders. The ruling applied even to those persons who had committed murder as a juvenile, extending beyond Graham v. Florida (2010), which had ruled juvenile life without parole sentences unconstitutional for crimes excluding murder.

Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685 (2002), was a Supreme Court of the United States case that upheld a death sentence despite the defendant's argument that he should not be sentenced to death because he was suffering from drug-induced psychosis when he committed the crimes. Cone also argued that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to present sufficient mitigating evidence during the sentencing phase of his trial and that his attorney inappropriately waived his final argument during the sentencing phase. In an 8–1 opinion written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the United States Supreme Court denied Cone's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The Court held that the actions taken by Cone's attorney during the sentencing phase were "tactical decisions" and that the state courts that denied Cone's appeals did not unreasonably apply clearly established law. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that Cone was denied effective assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to "subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing."

United States v. Morgan, 346 U.S. 502 (1954), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court which provides the writ of coram nobis as the proper application to request federal post-conviction judicial review for those who have completed the conviction's incarceration in order to challenge the validity of a federal criminal conviction.

Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465 (1976), was decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that limited which claims of Fourth Amendment violations could be made by state prisoners in habeas corpus petitions in federal courts. Specifically, a claim that the exclusionary rule had been broken would be barred if state courts had already given it a full and fair hearing. The decision combined two cases that were argued before the Supreme Court on the same day with similar issues, one filed by Lloyd Powell and the other, titled Wolff v. Rice, filed by David Rice.

References

  1. 1 2 Kroft, Steve (July 21, 2019). "Meet a Convicted Felon who Became a Georgetown Law Professor". 60 Minutes. CBS News. Retrieved July 22, 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Liptak, Adam (February 8, 2010). "A Mediocre Criminal, but an Unmatched Jailhouse Lawyer". The New York Times. Retrieved May 23, 2010.
  3. ↑ "Robert Mark Hopwood". October 16, 2007.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Conklin, Ellis E. (October 1, 2013). "Shon Hopwood's Journey from the Big House to". Seattle Weekly. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 Real-McKeighan, Tammy (March 15, 2013). "Hopwood to Speak at Annual Prayer Breakfast". Fremont Tribune.
  6. 1 2 Bryant, Carol (April 15, 1999). "Two Men Sentenced to Prison for Bank Robberies". The Grand Island Independent.
  7. ↑ Memmott, Mark (September 5, 2013). "The Incredible Case of the Bank Robber Who's Now a Law Clerk". All Things Considered. NPR.
  8. 1 2 3 Johnson, Riley (March 13, 2014). "Former Prisoner Pushes Prison Reform". Lincoln Journal Star.
  9. ↑ Hopwood, Shon. "The News". PEN American Center. Archived from the original on August 19, 2010.
  10. ↑ "Shon Hopwood". Archived from the original on August 19, 2010. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  11. ↑ "Inmate Locator". United States Bureau of Prisons.
  12. ↑ Long, Katherine (September 27, 2012). "Former Robber in 2nd Year at UW Law School". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on October 23, 2012.
  13. 1 2 Mauro, Tony (October 6, 2014). "From Felony Conviction to Bar Exam". National Law Journal. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
  14. ↑ Mauro, Tony (August 7, 2013). "Unusual Law Clerk Hire for D.C. Circuit Judge Janice Rogers Brown". The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.
  15. ↑ In re: Hopwood, 201,345-7 (Wash. Sup. Ct.September 4, 2014).
  16. ↑ Mauro, Tony. "14 Memorable NLJ Supreme Court Stories of 2014". National Law Journal. Retrieved January 2, 2015.[ dead link ]
  17. ↑ "Lawyer Search". Washington State Bar Association. Archived from the original on July 17, 2015. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
  18. ↑ Santos, Michael. "The Inspiring Story of an Ex-Bank Robber Who Turned into America's Best Jailhouse Lawyer". Business Insider. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
  19. ↑ Long, Katherine (April 7, 2017). "Former Bank Robber Helped by Gates Fund Now Professor at Georgetown Law School". The Seattle Times. Retrieved April 8, 2017.
  20. ↑ Svriuga, Susan (April 21, 2017). "He Robbed Banks and Went to Prison. His Time There Put Him on Track for a New Job: Georgetown Law Professor". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 25, 2017.
  21. ↑ Hopwood, Shon; Burke, Dennis Michael (2012). Law Man: My Story of Robbing Banks, Winning Supreme Court Cases, and Finding Redemption. Crown. ISBN   9780307887832. OCLC   761846778.
  22. ↑ "Law Man: My Story of Robbing Banks, Winning Supreme Court Cases, and Finding Redemption". Kirkus Review. July 12, 2012.
  23. ↑ Seggel, Heather (August 2012). "Beating the System". BookPage. Archived from the original on August 14, 2018.
  24. ↑ Pitt, David (June 14, 2012). "Law Man". Booklist Online.
  25. ↑ Hopwood, Shon (December 21, 2012). "I Got a Second Chance After Robbing Banks-and Others Should, Too". The Atlantic.
  26. ↑ Hopwood, Shon (August 20, 2012). "Giving Prisoners a Second Chance Means Removing the Barriers to Reentry". Huffington Post.
  27. ↑ Hopwood, Shon (September 16, 2016). "Clarity in Criminal Law". American Criminal Law Review. SSRN   2838871.
  28. ↑ Blake, William; Hacker, Hans; Hopwood, Shon (August 13, 2015). "Seasonal Affective Disorder: Clerk Training and the Success of Supreme Court Certiorari Petitions". Law and Society Review. 49 (4): 973–997. doi:10.1111/lasr.12165. hdl: 11603/19244 . SSRN   2644009.
  29. ↑ Hopwood, Shon (2014). "The Not So Speedy Trial Act" (PDF). Washington Law Review. 89: 709–745.
  30. ↑ "Preface: Failing to Fix Sentencing Mistakes: How the System of Mass Incarceration May Have Hardened the Hearts of the Federal Judiciary".
  31. ↑ Hogwood, Shon R. (December 2011). "Slicing Through the Great Legal Gordian Knot: Ways to Assist Pro Se Litigants in Their Quest for Justice" (PDF). Fordham Law Review. 80: 1229–1239.
  32. ↑ Hopwood, Shon R. (November 2010). "From a Prison Law Library to the New York Times". Champion. National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
  33. ↑ Kroft, Steve (July 8, 2018). "Meet a convicted felon who became a Georgetown law professor". 60 Minutes. CBS News . Retrieved July 9, 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.