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Louisville-Jefferson
County Public Defender Corporation
Leadership Team
Daniel
T. Goyette - Leo G. Smith - Jay Lambert - Michael C. Lemke - Donald J. Meier
Patricia L. Echsner - Chastity R. Beyl - Angela M. Rea - Krsna I. Tibbs - Peter
L. Schuler
Emily Farrar-Crockett - Bruce P. Hackett - J. David Niehaus
Cindy
L. Downs - Sharon D. Johnson
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Daniel
T. Goyette
Chief Public Defender/
Executive Director
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Daniel
T. Goyette is the Chief Public Defender for Jefferson County and has served as Executive Director of the Louisville-Jefferson County Public Defender Corporation since 1982. A former Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney, he was a member of the original Career Criminal Bureau. Mr. Goyette is a past president of both the Louisville Bar Association and the Louisville Bar Foundation. A recipient of the American Bar Association’s prestigious Dorsey Award, he is a current member of the ABA House of Delegates, the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, and a former member of the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility. He was a longtime member of the KBA Ethics Committee and a past chair of the LBA Committee on Professional Responsibility. Since 1979, he has been a member of the adjunct faculty at the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville, receiving the Dean’s Service Award in 2003. He has lectured on a variety of legal issues and topics both locally and nationally, and the Kentucky Bar Association presented the 2003 Justice Thomas B. Spain Award to him for outstanding service in continuing legal education. In 2007, Mr. Goyette was selected as the recipient of the state’s Outstanding Lawyer Award by the Kentucky Bar Association. That same year, in its inaugural rating of Kentucky lawyers, Mr. Goyette was recognized by SuperLawyers in the category of criminal defense, and he has been featured in the Top Lawyers edition of Louisville Magazine and other publications. He is a charter member of the Louis D. Brandeis American Inn of Court and Chair of its Membership Committee. He is also a charter Board member and past President of the Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (KACDL), and was the recipient of the KACDL Special Recognition Award in 2009. The Department of Public Advocacy presented the Gideon Award to Mr. Goyette in 1994 for “his extraordinary commitment to equal justice and his courage in advancing the right to counsel for the poor in Kentucky,” and also honored him with the Lincoln Leadership Award in 2004. He is a 1985 graduate of Leadership Louisville and a 1995 Bingham Fellow. Among other organizations, he has chaired Citizens for Better Judges and the Center for Educational Leadership. He was one of the recipients of the 2003 Hall of Fame William H. Sheppard – Excellence in Community Leadership Award. Mr. Goyette is a graduate of Marquette University, the Rome (Italy) Center of Liberal Arts, and the University of Oklahoma College of Law. |
Leo
G. Smith
Deputy Chief
Public Defender |
Leo G.
Smith is a trial attorney who serves as Deputy Chief Public Defender in
the Office of the Louisville-Jefferson County Public Defender. A Louisville
native, he attended St. Xavier High School, graduated from the University
of Louisville with high honors and a Bachelor of Science degree in Commerce
and, thereafter, graduated cum laude from the Louis D. Brandeis School
of Law at the University of Louisville, where he served as Executive Editor
of the Law Review. He was also a member of the Brandeis Honor Society and,
upon graduation, received the Robert C. Jayes Memorial Award. For
the past 29 years, he has served as a staff trial attorney and held several
leadership positions with the Public Defender's Office, including Director
of Training and Chief of the Adult Trial Division. He has acted as lead
counsel in numerous jury trials, including several death penalty cases.
In 2000, he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University
of Louisville's Brandeis School of Law. His work was also recognized by
the Department of Public Advocacy and Kentucky Bar Association in 1999 with
the presentation of its first Professionalism and Excellence Award.
He has authored several articles on criminal defense practice that have
been published in The Advocate, the Journal of Criminal Justice Education
& Research publication of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy.
Mr. Smith is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Louisville
Bar Foundation. He is past chair of the Criminal Law Section of the Kentucky
Bar Association, as well as a past chair of the Criminal Law Section of
the Louisville Bar Association and a former member of the LBA Professional
Responsibility Committee. Mr. Smith was trial counsel in the case of Griffith
v. Kentucky, 107 S.Ct. 708 (1987), which decided the retroactivity question
left open in the landmark case of Batson v. Kentucky. He has received numerous Walker Awards in recognition of excellence of advocacy in felony jury trials that resulted in the acquittal of his clients. |
Jay
Lambert
Chief, Capital Trial Division |
Jay Lambert is a 1983 graduate of the University of Kentucky School of Law. He came
to work for the Office of the Louisville-Jefferson County Public Defender
upon graduation and worked in the Adult Trial and Major Litigation Divisions
until 1993, when he left to establish his own firm concentrating in the
areas of criminal law and civil rights litigation. Mr. Lambert returned to the Office
of the Louisville-Jefferson County Public Defender in 2000 as an Adult Trial
Division Chief. Since 2003, he has been the Capital Trial Division Chief. During his years of practice, Mr. Lambert
has tried more than eighty jury trials in Circuit Court. He is admitted
to practice in Kentucky state courts, the United States District Court for
the Eastern and Western Districts of Kentucky and the Sixth Circuit. He
has served as an instructor in criminal procedure at the Louis D. Brandeis
School of Law at the University of Louisville and has taught various criminal
law topics and trial techniques at numerous seminars and workshops throughout
Kentucky for the Department of Public Advocacy, the Louisville Bar Association,
the Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the American Trial
Lawyers Association. He is the training coordinator for the Louisville Metro Public Defender’s office, including the program for new lawyer orientation and training. Mr. Lambert was the recipient of the 2005 Gideon
Award presented by the Department of Public Advocacy, and also received the 2009 Frank E. Haddad, Jr. Award from the Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. |
Michael C. Lemke
Deputy Chief,
Capital Trial Division |
Michael C. Lemke is the Deputy Chief of the Capital Trial Division of the Louisville-Jefferson County Public Defender’s office. He is a 1982 graduate of the University of Louisville Brandeis School of law and is admitted to practice in Kentucky, federal courts for the Western District of Kentucky and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. After a position as law clerk to Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Marvin Sternberg, Mr. Lemke came to the Public Defender’s Office in 1983. During a six-year period, he handled appeals, misdemeanor and felony trials, civil commitment defense, and several capital cases. Mr. Lemke attended the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia in 1985 and the Clarence Darrow Death Penalty Defense College in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2008. From 1989 until 2004, he was in the private practice of law that included securities fraud litigation, criminal trial work, criminal appeals, and various other matters. In 2004, he returned to the Louisville Metro Public Defender’s Office to take a position in the Capital Trial Division. He has been on the faculty or served as mentor for Department of Public Advocacy training programs for several years. Mr. Lemke has been recognized numerous times for the successful defense of felony cases at trial, as well for the successful representation of defendants in capital trials. Additionally, in 2009, Mr. Lemke received the Furman Award from the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy for “courageous representation of capital clients”. He was named Deputy Chief of the Capital Trial Division that same year.
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Donald
J. Meier
Adult Trial
Division
Chief,
Team 1 |
Donald
J. Meier is an alumnus of the University of Louisville and a 1982 graduate of its Brandeis School of Law. He has been a trial attorney with the Louisville-Jefferson County Public Defender’s Office since 1983, presently serving as a Chief in the Adult Trial Division. He has previously held the position of Chief of the Capital Trial Division. Prior to that, Mr. Meier served as a staff trial attorney in the Adult, Juvenile, Mental Inquest and Major Litigation Divisions. He has served as an expert consultant to the Governor’s Task Force on Civil Commitment & Public Notification and is a past co-chair of the Criminal Law Section of the Louisville Bar Association. He has appeared on “60 Minutes”, as well as local and regional television programs, dealing with issues involving mental illness and the legal system. He was the 2001 recipient of the Professionalism and Excellence Award presented by the Department of Public Advocacy and the Kentucky Bar Association; the 2007 recipient of the Frank E. Haddad, Jr. Award presented by the Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; and the 2008 recipient of the Gideon Award presented by the Department of Public Advocacy. Additionally, Mr. Meier has won numerous Walker Awards for excellence of advocacy in felony jury trials that resulted in the acquittal of his clients. |
Patricia
L. Echsner
Adult Trial
Division Chief,
Team 2 |
Patricia
L. Echsner is currently a Division Chief in the Adult Trial Division at the Louisville Metro Public Defender's Office. Prior to that, she spent seven years as a Deputy Chief in the Juvenile Trial Division. She began her career at the office in May 1991 as a law clerk after earning a BA from the University of Kentucky in 1985 and her JD from the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law in 1992. She was selected to attend the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia in 1995. She is an experienced trial attorney in the district and circuit courts, representing both juveniles and adults. In July 1998 she represented a juvenile client facing the death penalty who was acquitted of murder and robbery first degree. In February 2001 she represented an adult client facing the death penalty for two intentional murders who received a penalty of life without the possibility of parole for twenty-five years. In June 2002 Ms. Echsner received the Department of Public Advocacy's In re: Gault Award "for specially advancing the quality of representation of juveniles in Kentucky." She is a former member of the Louis D. Brandeis American Inn of Court and a former member of the Jefferson County Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Council. |
Chastity
R. Beyl
Adult Trial Division Chief,
Team 3 |
Chastity R. Beyl is
a Division Chief in the Adult Trial Division of the Louisville Metro Public Defender’s Office. She graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree and Honors in History from Western Kentucky University in 1998. She then attended the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville, graduating cum laude in 2001. Since graduation, Ms. Beyl has been a trial attorney with the Louisville Metro Public Defender’s Office, successfully handling numerous major felony trials. She was selected to attend the Trial Practice Institute at the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia in 2004, and is a former member of the Louis D. Brandeis American Inn of Court. In 2005, she received the Frank E. Haddad, Jr. Young Lawyer Award from the Louisville Bar Association. That same year, she was picked by judges as one of Louisville’s “best lawyers under 40” in Louisville Magazine. More recently, the Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers presented the 2011 KACDL Frank E. Haddad, Jr. Award to Ms. Beyl in recognition of exceptional professional achievement. She also has received several Walker Awards for excellence of advocacy in jury trials that resulted in verdicts of acquittal for her clients. |
Angela M. Rea
Adult Trial Division Chief,
Team 4
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Angela Rea is currently a Division Chief in the Adult Trial Division. She has been an attorney with the Louisville Metro Public Defender’s Office since April of 2003. Prior to that, in 1997, she graduated from Indiana University with Bachelors of Arts degrees in English and French. During her time at IU, she spent a year living and studying in Strasbourg, France. She went on to receive her law degree from Cornell Law School in 2002. While at Cornell, she worked with the school’s Legal Information Institute. She also spent four months living and working for the United Nations Drug Control Program in Bridgetown, Barbados. During her tenure at the Louisville Metro Public Defender’s Office, she has practiced in the Adult and Capital Trial Divisions and in the Appellate Division. In 2005, she was selected to attend the National Criminal Defense College in Macon Georgia. More recently, in 2007, she took part in a Spanish language study program with other attorneys and with judges that ended with an immersion stay in Morelia, Mexico to practice language skills and undertake a comparative study of the justice systems of Mexico and the United States. After tours in the Capital Trial and Appellate Divisions of the office, she returned to the Adult Trial Division in the fall of 2008, first as a Deputy Division Chief, and then, beginning in July 2010, as one of the Division Chiefs in the Adult Trial Division. Angela has won four Walker Awards for excellent advocacy in felony jury trials that resulted in verdicts of acquittal. Her work has also earned her the Clarence Darrow Prodigy Award from the Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and designation as one of Louisville’s Best Lawyers under 40 by Louisville Magazine. |
Krsna I. Tibbs
Adult Trial Division Chief,
Team 5 |
Krsna Tibbs is a Division Chief in the Adult Trial Division of the Louisville Metro Public Defender’s Office. He graduated from the University of Louisville with a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Management, in 1997. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Mr. Tibbs attended the University of Louisville on a debate scholarship, where he was Co-captain of the debate team and then Assistant Debate Coach for three years for a nationally ranked debate team. While Mr. Tibbs was Assistant Debate Coach, he obtained a M.B.A. in Business Management in 2001 from the University of Louisville, College of Business and Public Administration. He then attended the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville, where he won the 2002 Pirtle-Washer Moot Court Competition, the law school’s “oldest and most prestigious moot court competition.” Upon his graduation from the Brandeis School of Law in 2003, Mr. Tibbs accepted a position as a staff attorney in the Adult Trial Division of the Louisville Metro Public Defender’s Office, successfully defending clients charged with major felonies. Mr. Tibbs has tried over twenty-five cases in the District and Circuit courts. He has received four Walker Awards for excellence of advocacy in felony jury trials resulting in verdicts of complete acquittal. In October of 2008, Mr. Tibbs was promoted to Deputy Chief of the Adult Trial Division and in July 2010 was appointed as one of its Division Chiefs. He was selected to attend and graduated from the National Criminal Defense College Trial Practice Institute at Mercer University in Macon, GA, in June 2007. He is a member of several civic and professional legal organizations including the Louisville Bar Association, the Louisville Black Lawyers Association, NAACP, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He is a former Associate member of the Louis D. Brandeis American Inn of Court. In 2008, Mr. Tibbs received the Frank E. Haddad, Jr. Young Lawyer Award from the Louisville Bar Association. |
Peter
L. Schuler
Chief, Juvenile Trial Division
Photo ©The
Courier-Journal |
Peter L.
Schuler is a 1972 graduate of Vanderbilt University and a 1975 graduate of the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. He has served as a trial attorney with the Louisville-Jefferson County Public Defender’s Office since 1976. His practice has been concentrated in the area of juvenile law and mental health law since 1982. In 1983, he became the Chief of the office’s Juvenile Trial Division, which also has responsibility for handling the representation of clients in involuntary commitment proceedings in Mental Inquest Court. During his career, he has served on numerous committees and participated in the activities of other groups with the goal of improving the quality of juvenile justice and the mental health system in Kentucky. Currently, he is a member of the Department of Juvenile Justice’s Prevention Counsel, the Jefferson County Family Court Advisory Board, and the Kentucky Criminal Justice Council’s Juvenile Justice Committee. He has participated in attorney training for the Kentucky Bar Association and the Department of Public Advocacy with respect to juvenile law and mental health issues. He was the 1999 recipient of the Department of Public Advocacy’s In re: Gault Award, and the 2005 recipient of the Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Juvenile Justice Award, both of which recognize excellence in advocacy in the area of juvenile law. He co-authored the chapter on “Juvenile Law and Psychiatry” in the Handbook of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (John Wiley, 1998), Paul Adams, M.D., editor. |
Emily
Farrar-Crockett
Deputy Chief, Juvenile Trial Division |
Emily Farrar-Crockett is the Deputy Chief of the Juvenile Trial Division. She graduated from Murray State University in 1997 with a B.S. in Biology. While at Murray, she was actively involved with the Calloway County Literacy Project, which helped teach illiterate, indigent persons how to read and improve basic life skills. Before going to law school, Mrs. Farrar-Crockett taught high school biology and chemistry for the Jefferson County Public School System. Mrs. Farrar-Crockett graduated from Tulane Law School in 2001. While at Tulane, she received a City of New Orleans Certificate of Merit for her representation of indigent persons as a student attorney with the Tulane Criminal Litigation Clinic. She also wrote successful appeals to the Louisiana Court of Appeals and the Louisiana Supreme Court, was a “CASA” Court Appointed Special Advocate for kids, a Schoolmates Tutor for underprivileged children, and was a member of the Tulane Inn of Court. Mrs. Farrar-Crockett began her career at the Louisville-Jefferson County Public Defender’s Office in 2001. She has been a trial attorney in the Adult, Mental Health, and Juvenile Divisions. She has represented numerous clients in felony, misdemeanor, civil commitment, and civil contempt cases. She has received Walker Awards for Excellence in Advocacy and Toddler Awards for successful felony acquittals in juvenile court. She has also been an associate member of the Louis D. Brandeis Inn of Court, a participant in the 2007 Louisville Bar Association Leadership Academy, and involved in community outreach programs. Mrs. Farrar-Crockett was the recipient of the 2008 Juvenile Justice Award presented by the Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the 2009 In re: Gault Award presented by the Department of Public Advocacy for courageous representation of juvenile defendants. |
Bruce P. Hackett
Chief, Appellate Division
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Bruce Hackett graduated from the University of Louisville in 1973 and the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville in 1978. After two years as a staff attorney with the Government Law Center at the Brandeis School of Law, concentrating in the areas of legislative analysis, energy law, affirmative action and disabilities law, he joined the Louisville-Jefferson County Public Defender as an appellate attorney, serving as an Assistant Public Defender and Deputy Appellate Defender. In 1982, he accepted a commission in the Judge Advocate General Corps of the United States Navy, where he initially served for three years as a defense attorney. He followed that with four years as a prosecutor and staff judge advocate. Concurrently, he served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Maryland. After seven years of active duty naval service, Mr. Hackett returned to the Louisville-Jefferson County Public Defender in 1989, where he held the position of Deputy Appellate Defender before assuming his current assignment as Chief Appellate Defender. He has served as counsel in death penalty cases at trial, on appeal, in post-conviction, in collateral civil litigation and in federal habeas corpus proceedings. He has taught criminal procedure as an adjunct instructor at the Brandeis School of Law. In 2010, Mr. Hackett was honored with the Professionalism and Excellence Award by the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy and Kentucky Bar Association. He is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Kentucky, the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Kentucky. |
J. David Niehaus
Deputy Chief,
Appellate Division |
David Niehaus received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisville in 1973 and a J. D. from the University of Louisville School of Law in 1978. He entered private practice as an associate in the firm of Raine, Raine and Highfield, focusing on written advocacy in insurance defense and policy coverage cases. In July, 1983, he joined the Louisville-Jefferson County Public Defender as Deputy Appellate Defender, which position he has held since. He is admitted to practice in Kentucky, and before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. In 1986, he was lead counsel in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986). He was associate counsel in Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 683 (1986) and Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U. S. 361 (1989). At the invitation of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Kentucky, he served a four year term on the first Evidence Rules Review Committee created after Kentucky adopted Rules of Evidence in 1992. In 1986 he received from the National Legal Aid and Defender Association the Rose Byrd Public Service Award. In 2008 he received the Professionalism and Excellence Award from the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy. In 2009 he was given the Louisville Bar Association’s Justice Martin E. Johnstone Special Recognition Award. Mr. Niehaus is a frequent speaker at CLE and new attorney training programs and has been a lecturer in criminal procedure at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. In 1994 he authored The Advocate Evidence Manual, an evidence guide for attorneys in criminal practice, and he has remained the sole author through four revisions. He is a member of the Kentucky, Louisville and American Bar Associations, as well as the Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He also is a member of the American Society for Legal History, the Kentucky Historical Society and the Filson Historical Society. |
