Kirk J. Henderson

An appeal can be litigated the right way or the wrong way.  Most attorneys do it the right way.  The “right way,” however, is not always good enough.  A better way exists that will maximize the chance to win a case that otherwise may lose.  The Criminal Appellate Practicum will teach this method, which is useful not only in criminal appeals, but in any forum where an attorney is trying to be persuasive.  It can help turn an average lawyer into a good lawyer, a good lawyer into a great lawyer, a great lawyer into one of the best.

At Vanderbilt Law School, Kirk J. Henderson served as Executive Articles Editor of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, won the Best Brief Award in the largest moot court competition in school history, and earned Dean’s List honors.  Since graduating in 1992, Mr. Henderson has worked in the Appellate Division of the Law Office of the Public Defender of Allegheny County (www.alleghenycounty.us/opd) and has appeared before all of the courts of Pennsylvania.  Mr. Henderson has represented hundreds of clients and, in a system where only about fifteen percent of appeals are successful, Mr. Henderson has won over a third of his cases.  He also frequently is invited to lecture across Pennsylvania on appellate practice and on substantive criminal law by the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Pennsylvania Public Defender’s Association.  Mr. Henderson has been teaching the Criminal Appellate Practicum since 1999.

Former students in this class have started their careers as public defenders, district attorneys, judicial law clerks, associates in large and small firms, and solo practitioners.  The skills learned in this class will be valuable in any of those settings.

Currently Teaching

• Criminal Appellate Practicum (Fall 07)

Selected Publications

• Mandatory-Minimum Sentences and the Jury: Time Again to Revisit Their Relationship, 33 University of Dayton Law Review ___ (forthcoming 2007).
• The Right to Argue That Trial Counsel Was Constitutionally Ineffective, 45 Duquesne Law Review 1 (2006).
• Thanks But No Thanks: State Supreme Courts’ Attempts to Remove Themselves from the Federal Habeas Exhaustion Requirement, 51 Case Western Reserve Law Review 201 (2000).
• Fighting the War on Drugs in the “New World Order”: The Ker-Frisbie Doctrine As a Product of Its Time, 24 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 535 (1991).
• Digging for Gold, 6 Vanderbilt Review 76 (1990) (fictional short story).

Reported cases

• Commonwealth v. Strader, ___ A.2d ___, No. 43 WAP 2006 (Pa. 2007), cert. petition filed.
• Commonwealth v. Maxwell, ___ A.2d ___, 2007 PA Super 270 (Pa. Super. 2007), allocatur petition filed.
• Commonwealth v. Smith, 906 A.2d 536 (Pa. 2006).
• Commonwealth v. Johnson, 874 A.2d 66 (Pa. Super. 2005), allocatur denied, 899 A.2d 1122 (Pa. 2006).
• Commonwealth v. Smith, 853 A.2d 1020 (Pa. Super. 2004).
• Commonwealth v. Bey, 841 A.2d 562 (Pa. Super. 2004).
• Doe v. Ward, 282 F.Supp.2d 323 (W.D.Pa. 2003).
• Commonwealth v. Johnson, 788 A.2d 985 (Pa. Super. 2001).
• Blanchard v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 785 A.2d 1054 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2001), allocatur denied, 797 A.2d 916 (Pa. 2002), overruled by Martin v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 840 A.2d 299 (Pa. 2003).
• Doe v. Ward, 124 F.Supp.2d 900 (W.D.Pa. 2000).
• Commonwealth v. Smith, 757 A.2d 354 (Pa. 2000).
• In the Interest of B.R., 732 A.2d 633 (Pa. Super. 1999).
• Commonwealth v. Martin, 727 A.2d 1136 (Pa. Super. 1999), allocatur denied,745 A.2d 1220 (Pa. 1999), overruled in part by Commonwealth v. Mouzon, 812 A.2d 617 (Pa. 2002).
• Commonwealth v. Prince, 719 A.2d 1086 (Pa. Super. 1998).
• Commonwealth v. Hatchin, 709 A.2d 405 (Pa. Super. 1998), allocatur denied, 727 A.2d 128 (Pa. 1998).
• Commonwealth v. Sewell, 702 A.2d 570 (Pa. Super. 1997)