Professor Andrea D. Lyon is a Clinical Professor of Law at DePaul University College
of Law, and the Associate Dean for Clinical Programs Law and Director of the Center for
Justice in Capital Cases. Professor Lyon graduated from Rutgers University, and from the
Antioch School of Law She first worked for the Cook County Public Defenders' Office,
working in the felony trial division, post-conviction/habeas corpus unit, preliminary
hearing/first municipal (misdemeanor) unit, and the appeals division. Her last position
there was as Chief of the Homicide Task Force, a 22-lawyer unit representing persons
accused of homicides. She has tried over 130 homicide cases, both while in the Public
Defender's office and since. In 1990 she founded the Illinois Capital Resource
Center and served as its director until joining the University of Michigan Law School
faculty as an Assistant Clinical Professor in 1995. A winner of the prestigious National
Legal Aid and Defender Association's Reginald Heber Smith Award for best advocate
for the poor in the country, she is a nationally recognized expert in the field of death
penalty defense and a frequent continuing legal education teacher throughout the country.
In 1998, she was awarded the “Justice for All” award at the National Conference on
Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty. In 2003, she received the lifetime
achievement award from the Illinois Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In 2005 she
received the president’s commendation from the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers for her death penalty work. She has defended over thirty potential capital cases
at the trial level and has taken nineteen through penalty phase; she has won all
nineteen

Articles

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Defending the Life or Death Case, ABA Litigation (2006)
Over thirteen years ago I wrote an article about defending a death penalty case ("Defending...
 

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Naming the Dragon: Litigating Race Issues During a Death Penalty Trial, DePaul Law Review (2004)
The issue of racial disparity in the administration of the death penalty is a persistent...