Christina Swarns
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Christina Allison Swarns is an American lawyer and the executive director of the Innocence Project, an independent not-for-profit organization that was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld as a legal clinic at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City. For more than 30 years, the Innocence Project has used DNA evidence to free wrongfully convicted clients while working to transform the systems that allow injustices to happen and building a movement for change.
Early Life[edit]
Swarns was born on July 16, 1968 in Queens, New York. Her father, Joseph Swarns, is a retired commercial real estate broker who was born in North Carolina and migrated to New York after his parents were blacklisted for attempting to unionize Black tobacco factory workers. Her mother, Lucille Swarns,[1] was born in the Bahamas and retired from a distinguished career in the New York City Department of Education, where the last position she held was as regional superintendent. She has two sisters, Rachel Swarns and Jessica Swarns.
Swarns grew up in Staten Island and graduated from Notre Dame Academy High School. In 1990, she earned her B.A. in political science from Howard University and, in 1993, her Juris Doctor (J.D.) at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Career & notable cases[edit]
Swarns began her career at the Legal Aid Society’s criminal defense practice as a staff attorney. She then spent seven years, from 1996 to 2003, with the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Community Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where she first served as an assistant federal defender and, later, as a supervising assistant federal defender. During her tenure, Swarns represented Nicholas Yarris, who was the first person on Pennsylvania’s death row to be exonerated by DNA evidence.
In 2003, Swarns became the director of the Criminal Justice Project at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF). She was appointed litigation director in 2014, where she oversaw all aspects of LDF’s economic justice, education, political participation, and criminal justice litigation.
In 2016, while at LDF, Swarns served as lead counsel for Duane Buck, a Black man who was sentenced to death in Texas after his own attorneys introduced “bizarre and objectionable”[2] expert testimony during the sentencing phase of his capital trial that suggested that Mr. Buck was more likely to commit criminal acts of violence in the future because he was Black. Swarns argued the case Buck v. Davis in the United States Supreme Court, and, in 2017, the court announced a 6-2 ruling that vacated Buck’s death sentence and explicitly condemned racial bias in the administration of criminal justice. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote for the majority, said, “Our law punishes people for what they do, not who they are. Dispensing punishment on the basis of an immutable characteristic flatly contravenes this guiding principle.” Swarns was the only Black woman to argue before the Supreme Court during that term, and is one of only a handful of Black women to ever argue before the Supreme Court.[3]
From 2017 to 2020, Swarns served as president and attorney-in-charge of the Office of the Appellate Defender, Inc., one of New York City’s oldest institutional providers of indigent appellate defense representation.
In September 2020, Swarns became the second executive director of the Innocence Project, succeeding Maddy DeLone. Under Swarns’ leadership, the Innocence Project has grown in its staff, size, and budget.
Media Presence[edit]
Swarns is a sought-after expert on wrongful convictions and the impact of race in the criminal legal system.
In October 2022, the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed[4] by Swarns, in which she cited a National Registry of Exonerations 2022 report that highlighted the pervasive racism inherent in the U.S.criminal legal system and offered practical ways to address these issues.
In December 2021, Swarns published an op-ed[5] in the New York Times on the Supreme Court case Shinn v Ramirez, arguing that Arizona’s restriction on the federal court’s ability to remedy inadequate lawyering post-conviction will “gravely erode the foundation of that system, further harming those who have already suffered the devastating and unjust consequences of incompetent lawyering.”
In March 2022, Swarns wrote an op-ed[6] in the New York Daily News, in which she analyzed Mayor Eric Adams’ blueprint to end gun violence and argued that his calls for bail and discovery reform rollbacks “goes against the work of policymakers trying to reckon with the arbitrary role of race in the administration of justice.” Swarns asserted that the inclusion of a “dangerousness assessment” to bail law would not ensure safety for communities but, rather, perpetuate the mass incarceration of Black and brown New Yorkers, while asserting that “race operates as a proxy for criminality and dangerousness.”
In January 2012, The Washington Post published a profile[7] on Swarns, in which she discussed topics that included her upbringing, her passions, and the irrefutable link between lynchings and the death penalty. Swarns also reflected on her earlier experiences as one of the only Black women in her field of work.
To date, Swarns has joined five C-SPAN panels. In 2007, Swarns joined a panel on race and the death penalty[8], which examined the relationship between racial inequities and the death penalty. In 2016, she participated in a panel discussion reviewing key decisions made during the 2015-16 Supreme Court term.[9] In 2016, Swarns presented an oral argument in the Supreme Court case Buck v. Davis[10], where she ultimately got Buck’s death sentence vacated. In 2017, Swarns participated in a discussion about the relationship between slavery, the 13th Amendment, and the mass incarceration[11] of Black and brown people. In 2021, Swarns provided a written argument for a contentious panel debate over the expansion of the Supreme Court.[12]
Recognition[edit]
In 2014, Swarns was selected by the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Law School to be an Honorary Fellow-in-Residence, an honor given to an attorney who makes “significant contributions to the ends of justice at the cost of great personal risk and sacrifice.”[13]
In 2017, Swarns received the Sadie T.M. Alexander Award from the National Black Law Student Association, in recognition of her outstanding representation of Duane Buck and continued commitment to criminal legal reform.
In 2018, Swarns received the Norman Redlich Capital Defense Distinguished Service Award from the New York City Bar Association’s Capital Punishment Committee. The award is given to individuals in New York who exhibit a strong, life-long, dedication to capital defense work.
In 2021, Swarns received the Champion of the Community Award from Gideon’s Promise, where she was recognized for her outstanding dedication to criminal legal reform.
In 2022, Swarns received the Diamond Award of Excellence from the Corporate Counsel Women of Color (CCWC) in recognition of her career-long dedication to criminal legal reform and her continued fight for justice.
References[edit]
- ↑ Medina, Jennifer (January 28, 2003). "New Leaders Of Schools Are Called Demanding" The New York Times.
- ↑ [1] Buck v. Davis 580 U.S. ___ (2017).
- ↑ Mencimer, Stephanie (October 5, 2016). "A Black Woman Is Arguing a Big Supreme Court Case Today. That Shouldn’t Be Unusual. But It Is.". Mother Jones.
- ↑ Swarns, Christina (October 7, 2022). "Op-Ed: Black people are wrongly convicted more than any other group. We can prevent this". Los Angeles Times.
- ↑ Swarns, Christina (December 3, 2021). "The Supreme Court Should Reject Arizona’s Death Penalty Gambit". The New York Times.
- ↑ Swarns, Christina (March 7, 2022). "Why the dangerousness standard is racist". The New York Daily News.
- ↑ O'Neale Parker, Lonnae (January 31, 2012). "Christina Swarns". The Washington Post.
- ↑ "Race and the Death Penalty" (March 19, 2007). c-span.org. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
- ↑ "Supreme Court Term Review" (June 30, 2016). c-span.org. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
- ↑ "Buck v. Davis Oral Arugment" (October 5, 2016). c-span.org. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
- ↑ "13th Amendment and Mass Incarceration" (April 7, 2017). c-span.org. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
- ↑ "Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court Public Meeting, Panel 3" (June 30, 2021). c-span.org. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
- ↑ "Christina Swarns, U. Penn Law School Honorary Fellow" (2014). (February 25, 2014). Legal Defense Fund. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
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