ROBERT J. McWHIRTER is a senior attorney with the Maricopa Legal Defender’s Office defending death penalty and other serious felonies. He is a certified specialist in criminal law with the State Bar of Arizona. Mr. McWhirter received his B.A. degree from Arizona State University and his J.D. degree from Arizona State University College of Law. Upon graduation, he clerked for then Vice Chief Justice Stanley G. Feldman of the Supreme Court of Arizona. Mr. McWhirter was an assistant federal public defender from 1989 until 2007, representing Native Americans and other clients in a broad range of federal cases, including homicide, sexual abuse and bank robbery. In addition, he developed a specialty in criminal immigration law having published articles in the Georgetown Immigration Law Review and the Criminal Practice Law Report. The American Bar Association published his book The Criminal Lawyer’s Guide to Immigration Law: Questions and Answers, 2nd Ed. 2006. Mr. McWhirter also teaches criminal immigration law and immigration consequences of criminal convictions nationally for Criminal Justice Act Panel Attorneys with the program sponsored by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. He took a four month leave from the Federal Public Defender’s office in 1998, to be a visiting professor of law at the Catholic University of Chile and the University of Chile, teaching seminars in Spanish on free speech, privacy, and the internet and American criminal procedure. Subsequently, Mr. McWhirter traveled to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Columbia, where he taught trial practice skills to public defenders and judges. He has consulted with the new public defender office in Chile and Argentina as part of the judicial reforms in those countries.
JOHN NAPPER is a private practice in Prescott, Arizona. Mr. Napper practices predominately in criminal defense, but also has a small civil litigation practice. He also works part time as a senior capital attorney with the Maricopa County Legal Defenders Office. Mr. Napper has participated in multiple felony trials, including trials involving capital offenses, homicides, sex offenses, assaults, and drug trafficking. He earned his B.A. degree in political science from Greensboro College and his J.D. degree, cum laude, from The John Marshall Law School where he was a member of The Law Review. Mr. Napper attended the Arizona State College of Law as a visiting student during his final year of law school where he was a Willard Pedrick scholar and a winner of the CALI Excellence for the Future Award for Excellent Achievement in the Study lf Law, Litigation, and Science. Mr. Napper has won a National Public Service Recognition Award and was awarded the Rising Star Award by the Arizona Public Defenders Association.
ANGELA M. BRADWSHAW NAPPER has been employed by the State Bar of Arizona since August 2004. In May 2006, she accepted the position as assistant ethics counsel. Previously, she was employed as bar counsel prosecuting discipline matters. Angela was admitted to practice in 1995. For the first seven years of her practice she worked as a deputy attorney for the Coconino County Public Defenders Office. While there she tried several felony jury trials and notably, initiated a graduate intern program for the office. She was integrally involved in the development and implementation of Coconino County’s DUI/Drug Court. She was a participant in the 2000 National Symposium on Indigent Defense held in Washington D.C. During her time in Flagstaff, she served as an officer for three years with the Coconino County Bar Association. In 2002, she left the public defenders office to start a family, but remained active in the DUI/Drug Court as the defense counsel liaison. In 2003 and 2004, she worked as a part time judge pro-tem for the Flagstaff Municipal Court. She is presently an active member of the Yavapai County Bar Association and the Northern Arizona Women Lawyers Association.