Debi Cornwall
Debi Cornwall joined NSB in 2001 and became a partner in 2006. In the last decade she has successfully litigated civil-rights cases at both the trial and appellate levels around the country on behalf of DNA exonerees and victims of police and prison brutality. For example:
In 2011, along with Peter Neufeld, Anna Benvenutti Hoffmann and Cochran Fellow Sandy Henderson, Ms. Cornwall won a seminal victory in New York’s Court of Appeals on behalf of Douglas Warney, who spent more than nine years in prison after falsely confessing to a murder he did not commit. The Court of Appeals unanimously held that an innocent claimant’s false confession is not his “own conduct” barring compensation under New York’s Unjust Conviction Act if the confession is attributable to police coercion or manipulation such as feeding facts. The Court further clarified the legal standards for pleading, assessing a motion to dismiss, and causation in these cases.
In 2009, along with Barry Scheck, Ms. Cornwall won a $10.7 million verdict on behalf of Betty Anne Waters for the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of her deceased brother, Kenny, in Massachusetts.
In 2007, Ms. Cornwall, along with Peter Neufeld, obtained a jury award on behalf of Herman Atkins, a black man falsely convicted of raping a white woman. In awarding Ms. Cornwall her full requsted fee, the Atkins court noted that the case “involved complex and novel issues of criminal procedure, constitutional law, tort law and governmental immunities. Plaintiff’s briefs and oral arguments were excellently presented and, during the trial, the Court found Plaintiff’s attorneys exceedingly well-prepared and skilled at trial litigation . . . Plaintiff’s attorneys did an excellent job trying this complicated, difficult case. Their experience, reputation and skill are all considerable . . . .”
In 2006, Ms. Cornwall, with Peter Neufeld, obtained the first-ever wrongful conviction verdict from a federal jury in Virginia on behalf of Earl Washington Jr., a mentally retarded man who falsely confessed to a murder he did not commit. The Washington litigation resulted in a sweeping forensic audit of the Virginia state crime lab.
Ms. Cornwall has also represented plaintiffs in Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas. She is admitted to practice in New York, the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeal.
Ms. Cornwall also provides consulting services to other plaintiffs’ attorneys in civil rights cases. She is currently retained to offer expert strategic guidance to plaintiffs’ counsel in a wrongful conviction action pending in federal court in the Southern District of Texas. In 2008, she received the Thurgood Marshall Award from the Association of the Bar of the City of New York for her pro bono work on capital cases, and she is currently a board member of the National Police Accountability Project (NPAP).
Before joining NSB, Ms. Cornwall was a law clerk to the Honorable Robert W. Sweet in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. She has also worked with the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, the Southern Center for Human Rights, and the Federal Defender Division of the Legal Aid Society in New York City. She received a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she was the captain of the winning team in the final round of the Ames Moot Court Competition and represented indigent felony defendants through the Criminal Justice Institute. Her undergraduate degree is from Brown University, magna cum laude and with honors.
Ms. Cornwall can be reached at debi@nsbcivilrights.com.