The Michigan Appellate Defender Commission presented the 2018 Norris Thomas Award for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy to SADO Assistant Defender Jacqueline McCann and presented the 2018 Barbara R. Levine Award for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy to MAACS’s Cecilia Quirindongo Baunsoe and Melissa Krauskopf.

The Michigan Appellate Defender Commission has unanimously voted to honor SADO Assistant Defender Jacqueline McCann with the 2018 Norris Thomas Award for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy. Named for SADO’s long-serving and much-respected Norris J. Thomas, Jr., the award is given annually to a SADO attorney whose appellate advocacy achieves outstanding results for clients or the criminal justice system. Thomas served as SADO’s Deputy Director over two decades before his untimely passing in 2007. His dedication to clients and craft in achieving excellent outcomes were legendary.

McCann has made countless and immeasurable contributions to SADO, the legal community, and to the cause of justice in Michigan over the course of her twenty-year legal career. She has been involved in some of the most significant Supreme Court cases over the past decade, including People v Francisco, which provided the right to resentencing for most guideline scoring errors, People v Holder, which put a stop to the widespread practice by courts of amending judgments of sentences without holding hearings, and Lafler v Cooper, the landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court concerning the right to effective assistance during plea negotiations.

In recent years, McCann has been at the center of some of the most complex and controversial cases, handling them with her trademark combination of calm, grace, and dogged determination, often under the most difficult of circumstances. She represents Theodore Wafer, who was convicted of second-degree murder in a high-profile, racially-charged trial for shooting a teenage girl on the porch of his home. And she is on the team fighting for Dr. Larry Nassar, a media pariah who has been repeatedly and publicly demonized by the judge who sentenced him. McCann’s zealous advocacy in these and other cases epitomizes a core principle upon which SADO was built – that the Constitution is there to protect everyone, including society’s most marginalized individuals. In poignant words that resonated above the surrounding media circus, McCann summed this up perfectly at the hearing for Dr. Nassar:

“There’s a lot of talk these days about whether or not anyone is above the law, but I would say that the corollary to that is no one is beneath the law, not even Doctor Nassar….”

McCann helped win justice in other cases in 2018, including People v Treshaun Terrance, where she was on the team that successfully argued that double jeopardy barred charges of second degree murder and torture, and People v Henry Harper, where the defendant received a 12-year sentence reduction after McCann successfully argued that consecutive sentences for CSC was not appropriate. Countless SADO clients have benefited greatly from McCann’s outstanding advocacy.

McCann serves on the SADO court rules committee and the SCAO forms committee, where she has been instrumental in developing innovative and much-needed improvements to the court rules and forms. She has trained thousands of defense attorneys at SADO and throughout the state, taught judges at the Michigan Judges Institute, and mentored aspiring defense attorneys as a professor at the Criminal Appellate Practice Clinic of the Wayne State University Law School.

On March 13, 2019, the Michigan Appellate Defender Commission presented the 2018 Barbara R. Levine Award for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy to Cecilia Quirindongo Baunsoe and Melissa Krauskopf. The Award is presented annually to an attorney or attorneys on the Michigan Appellate Assigned Counsel System (MAACS) roster who demonstrate extraordinary commitment on behalf of appellate assigned clients and the criminal justice system.

Law partners since 2008, Ms. Baunsoe and Ms. Krauskopf both joined the MAACS roster in 2013. Since that time, they have distinguished themselves as thorough and conscientious advocates for their appointed appellate clients, handling some of the most significant appeals and trial court postconviction matters statewide. These include the representation of a number of juveniles sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, as well as other uniquely challenging cases. In 2018, MAACS turned to Ms. Baunsoe and Ms. Krauskopf to assist in several related cases in which indigent individuals had been denied their appellate rights due to a systematic breakdown. Ms. Baunsoe and Ms. Krauskopf readily accepted the assignments and worked quickly to restore their clients’ rights and pursue meaningful relief in the trial and appellate courts.

In addition to their statewide MAACS practices, Ms. Baunsoe and Ms. Krauskopf handle several other types of appointed and retained cases from their Bloomfield Hills office. Ms. Baunsoe handles trial-level criminal and juvenile assignments in the Oakland County Circuit Court, as well as criminal assignments in the 51st District Court (Waterford). Ms. Krauskopf also handles trial-level criminal assignments in the Oakland County Circuit Court, while serving as appointed arraignment counsel in the 43rd District Court (Ferndale) and representing clients in Sobriety Court in the 44th District Court (Royal Oak).

Reflecting on their time working together, Ms. Baunsoe and Ms. Krauskopf both noted the value of collaboration and teamwork. “We work together on a lot of things, especially our juvenile lifer cases and cases we’ll be trying. We tend to run ideas past each other and email each other pleadings.” They also explained that it has “really been helpful to have trial experience for us to be effective on appeal”:

"Sometimes appellate attorneys, especially younger appellate lawyers, seem uncomfortable in a courtroom or do things that aren’t necessary or don’t seem to have an understanding of trial strategy or foundational issues. Having that perspective seems to make trial attorneys more willing to talk to [appellate counsel]."

The award is named for Barbara R. Levine, who worked tirelessly with the Appellate Defender Commission to create MAACS in 1987 and served as the first MAACS Administrator until July 9, 1999. Since then, Ms. Levine has been actively involved in advocacy on behalf of prisoners in Michigan and nationwide.