<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ellie McCarty is a member of the JD class of 2028 from Ringwood, NJ. She is in Section 7. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: How did you get involved in your first PLAP case?\u00a0<\/strong> Q: What was the discovery process like?\u00a0<\/strong> Q: What was the process of setting the hearing date like? <\/strong> Q: What did you do after reviewing all the discovery?\u00a0<\/strong> Q: What was the most impactful part of working on the case? <\/strong> Ellie McCarty is a member of the JD class of 2028 from Ringwood, NJ. She is in Section 7. Q: How did you get involved in your first PLAP case?\u00a0My client called in asking for representation for a disciplinary hearing in a few days during my office hours, so I requested his case, got a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11956,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[158],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-potw","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11956"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2180"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2193,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2180\/revisions\/2193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
My client called in asking for representation for a disciplinary hearing in a few days during my office hours, so I requested his case, got a continuance, and Katrina Weinert mentored me on it. Our client had done a lot of\u00a0advocacy\u00a0for himself even before seeking representation. He had requested a lot of his own discovery, which helped us really tailor our combined motion to dismiss and discovery request. I had heard that these motions are really a formality and are rarely ever successful, so I was mostly writing that motion with a future appeal in mind.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After\u00a0submitting\u00a0discovery, we got a lot of evidence back, even more than we expected. There were different incident reports, multiple BWC videos to review, photos, and more.\u00a0Even though our client had received a lot of\u00a0discovery\u00a0himself, there was a lot of\u00a0additional\u00a0\u201cview only\u201d\u00a0footage that\u00a0he\u00a0hadn\u2019t\u00a0been\u00a0granted\u00a0access to. We went to the prison and watched hours of footage.\u00a0We thought that most of it would be redundant, but all the different angles and perspectives were actually\u00a0very valuable.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We requested some additional view-only evidence that we knew they had, and in the meantime our client was transferred to a new prison. We finally got the hearing scheduled for right after finals, but the new prison decided to postpone the hearing at the last minute. We then had to go to a different prison to see the new \u201cview only\u201d evidence, so the date was delayed even further. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u00a0kept in touch\u00a0with the disciplinary officer, who sent us a disciplinary report from our client\u2019s cellmate\u00a0with\u00a0new information\u00a0that was exculpatory for our client.\u00a0After considering all of this, the hearing officer reviewed our client\u2019s file the morning of the hearing and decided to grant our motion to dismiss.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though we didn\u2019t get to the hearing, the opportunity to refute what was a lazy and nonsensical accusation was really meaningful. And for our client, I know it meant a lot to see his perspective and experience vindicated through the evidence and our argument. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"