Hello PCLP-ers!
For the last event of the semester, we have gathered an experienced panel of practitioners to discuss Operation Streamline and reflect on its strengths and weaknesses since its inception more than ten years ago and its expansion to Tucson almost nine years ago.
Please join us tomorrow in Room 168 at noon for this exciting presentation (Please try to arrive promptly. We may start earlier than 12:15 to accommodate our panelists' schedules), and as always, pizza will be served.
Biographies of participants:
Judge Bernardo Velasco:
Judge Velasco graduated from the University of Arizona Law school in 1974 and began his career first as a legal aid lawyer, and then as an assistant federal public defender. In 1985, he was appointed to the Pima County Superior Court and spent fifteen years on that bench. In 2000, he moved down the street and was appointed as a federal magistrate in the U.S. District Court, where he has served since. As a federal magistrate, Judge Velasco presides over the initial stages of federal criminal cases, and can also preside over misdemeanor trials and civil trials, with the parties' consent.
Erendira "Yendi" Castillo, Defense Attorney:
Ms. Castillo immigrated to the United States from Mexico with her mother and siblings when she was six years old. She grew up in Wisconsin and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received her JD from the University of Arizona and became a naturalized citizen in 1995. She worked at both the Pima County Public Defender's Office and the Federal Public Defender's Office before starting her own solo practice in criminal defense.
Liza Granoff, Assistant United States Attorney:
Ms. Granoff graduated in 1998 from the University of New Hampshire School of Law and began her career as a prosecutor at the State's Attorney's Office in Miami-Dade County, Florida, working her way up from misdemeanors, to juveniles, to specialized felony units, including the Sexual Battery/Child Abuse unit and Career Criminal/Robbery Unit. Ms. Granoff joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tucson in 2006, where she focused on immigration prosecutions. In 2007, she and her family returned back to Miami, where she worked for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of the Chief Counsel as a trial attorney doing removal hearings. She moved back to Tucson in 2008 and rejoined the U.S. Attorney's Office. She has since prosecuted a wide variety of federal offenses, including complex drug investigations. In 2011, she became a deputy criminal chief, and she currently supervises one of the General Crimes Units, as well as overseeing the immigration area.
**CLE Events**
The State Bar of Arizona does not approve or accredit CLE activities for the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education requirement. This activity may qualify for up to 1.0 hours toward your annual CLE requirement for the State Bar of Arizona. Download CLE Certificate 11.30