Saturday, August 12, 2006

"So long," Sarah

Well, the trade deadline just passed for Major League Baseball, so I guess it's appropriate that the next of our ADO musical chairs takes place, since it is something of a trade.

Sarah Johnson started work at the ADO in June 2001. Sarah brought the total package to her job at the ADO, both a real competitive attitude regarding her advocacy plus real concern for every client.

Sarah is going to work for BIDS as a Capital Appellate Defender, working with Rebecca Woodman. It is sort of odd to talk about Sarah "leaving" because her she is staying right in her current office--but administratively, she is now strictly working with Rebecca on capital cases and other cases assigned to them by BIDS.

In her five years at the ADO, she has become somewhat of a glutton for homicide cases, taking on lots of big murder cases and winning several of them including: State v. Brown, (KSC, felony murder conviction reversed based on judicial misconduct) and State v. Dixon, (KSC, felony murder conviction reversed based on prosecutorial misconduct and denial of public trial). I also fondly remember State v. Schroeder, a cattle-rustling case, where Sarah successfully got the KSC to reinstate the district court's dismissal based on compulsory joinder after the COA improperly ordered reinstatement of the charges.

As I noted, Sarah's "departure" is really something of a trade for us. Janine Cox is "coming back" to the ADO. She "left" to work with Rebecca a few years ago, but had decided to return to non-capital work. So while were are suffering a loss with Sarah's departure, we are getting a proven advocate "back" at the same time. I wonder if we should have pushed for a future player to be determined?

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