Brent E. Newton

Education

Classes & Seminars

• “Hot Topics in the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence” — Federal Public Defender’s Office / CLE for CJA Panel Attorneys; Phoenix, AZ; March 2020
• Annual or biannual presentations on legal ethics, immigration offenses, firearms offenses, child pornography offenses, and federal supervised release — U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Annual National Seminars on the Sentencing Guidelines; 2007–2019
• “Sentencing in Securities Fraud Cases” — ABA’s Fifth Annual Institute on Securities Fraud; New Orleans, LA; October 2010
• Annual presentations on federal habeas corpus practice, mental health issues in criminal law, federal pretrial motions practice, and federal sentencing issues — Advanced Criminal Law Course (State Bar of Texas); 1999, 2002, 2005, 2007–2009, 2011
• Regular presentations on firearms offenses, immigration offenses, pretrial motions practice, and Title III wiretaps — “Winning Strategies” Seminars (Defender Services Division, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts); 2002–2009

Published Works

• Trial Advocacy in Action (NITA/LEXIS 2015)
• Practical Criminal Procedure: A Constitutional Manual (4th ed., NITA/LEXIS 2021)
• Criminal Litigation and Legal Issues in Criminal Procedure (5th ed., NITA/Wolters Kluwer 2023)
• Incentivizing Ineffective-Assistance-of-Counsel Claims Raised on Direct Appeal: Why Appellate Courts Should Remand “Colorable” Claims for Evidentiary Hearings, 22 J. App. Prac. & Process 107 (2022)
• A Partial Fix of a Broken Guideline: A Proposed Amendment to Section 2G2.2 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines, 70 Case Western Reserve L. Rev. 53 (2020)
• Recurring Ethical Issues Related to Federal Sentencing, 43 J. of the Legal Prof. 25 (2018)
• The History of the Original United States Sentencing Commission, 1985–87, 45 Hofstra L. Rev. 1167 (2017) (co-authored with Dawinder Sidhu)
• The Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment Scorecard, 13 Stanford Journal of Civ. Rts. & Civ. Liberties 1 (2017)
• The Real-World Fourth Amendment, 43 Hastings Const. L. Quarterly 759 (2016)
• The Story of Federal Probation, 53 Amer. Crim. L. Rev. 311 (2016)
• Three chapters — Mental Health Issues in Federal Criminal Practice, Pretrial Statements, and Constitutional Issues that Arise During Trial — in Defending a Federal Criminal Case (2010)
• Four entries — Retroactivity, The Eighth Amendment, Substantive Due Process, and Professional Baseball Cases — in The Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (Macmillan Reference USA 2008)

Bar Admissions

• Texas
• Florida
• Washington
• Maryland
• U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas
• U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas
• U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas
• U.S. District Court, District of Maryland
• U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals, 10th Circuit
• Supreme Court of the United States

Honors

• Elected Member, American Law Institute, 2010
• Martindale-Hubbell “AV Preeminent” Rating
• Student Bar Association’s “Adjunct Professor of the Year,” 2013–2014, Washington College of Law, American University
• Student Bar Association’s “Adjunct Professor of the Year,” 2008–2009, University of Houston Law Center
• Named “Outstanding Assistant Federal Defender, 2006” (one of four nationally) by the National Association of Federal Defenders
• Harry S. Truman Scholar, 1987