Criminal Law Practice Program
The [prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such ,[s]/ he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. Berger v. U.S. 295 U.S. 78 ( 1935).
The Criminal Law Practice Programis a one semester course in which students prosecute criminal cases in local prosecutor offices. The course aims at building prosecutorial skills and values by exposing students to actual practice in a prosecutor office. Students enroll for either six credit hours or four credit hours. In the six credit hour course, students spend two days per week in fieldwork. In the four credit hour offering, students spend a day and a half in fieldwork.
Students conduct real victim interviews, plea negotiations and trials in a prosecutor office. Fieldwork placements are available in the northwest Ohio cities of Toledo, Maumee, Bowling Green, Sylvania, Oregon, Port Clinton, and Napoleon, and in county prosecutor offices in Lucas County (Juvenile Division), Wood County (Juvenile Divisions), and Fulton County. The Lucas and Wood county offices also offer opportunities for adult felony prosecution experience limited to research and writing.
Michigan placements are available in Lenawee County ( Adrian), Michigan, Monroe County ( Monroe), Michigan, Washtenaw County ( Ann Arbor), Michigan, and Wayne County ( Detroit), Michigan.
The office of United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio is available subject to a background check. Students interested in this placement must have excellent academic credentials and apply six months prior to the semester of enrollment.
Clinic students attend a class each week on prosecutorial skills (trial practice, interviewing, plea bargaining) and values. There is no final examination. Each student caps off the clinic by participating in a graded mock misdemeanor trial.
Associate Professor Robin M. Kennedy and Adjunct Professor Dennis Parish, Judge of the Ohio Sixth District Court of Appeals teach the clinic.
Course Materials:
- Requirement of Internship Certification
- Prosecutor's Evaluation of Students
- Judge's Evaluation of Students
- Course Prerequisites