Paralegal Jobs | Guide to Becoming a Paralegal

There are many online paralegal schools providing an education that will train and prepare one for a career in any area of law, including criminal law. Entering into a career as such will likely have you working on cases both big and small. One such controversial case you could find yourself in is one that involves the death penalty. The public discourse of death penalty in the Unites States is in a way like that for low taxes.  Sure, most people support both – it’s human nature to want retribution, and to want to keep ‘mo money for themselves.  However, when probed deeper on both topics, questions and doubt start to arise.  What if innocent people happen to be executed?  What if lower taxes means the closing of schools, libraries, and more potholes on the streets?

In recent days, support for death penalty took such a blow.  On March 7, 2011, the US Supreme Court, in Skinner v. Switzer, held that Texas death row inmate, Hank Skinner, cannot be executed until lower courts hear his demand that several items from the crime scene, including a rape kit from the victim and two knives used in the attack, be tested for DNA.

This is hardly a get-out-of-jail card for Skinner – he’ll still have to overcome myriad legal objections to his demand for testing of DNA evidence. What the decision means for Skinner – and others similarly situated – is that he will at least have another day in court.

Skinner’s case isn’t unique.  According to the Innocence Project, the premier national organization that assists prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing, 17 people on death row have been exonerated by DNA evidence thus far, in addition to the 267 people in the US who have been exonerated by DNA testing.  Furthermore, public sentiment has begun to shift regarding death penalty, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.  The number of death sentences has continually dropped for the seventh consecutive year as of 2009; the number is now the lowest it has been since the Supreme Court re­instated the death penalty in 1976. 11 states considered abolishing the death penalty recently, citing high costs (due to death row appeals paid for by the taxpayer) and lack of measurable benefits in lowering or deterring crime, the most often cited reasons for the death penalty in the first place. New Mexico just became the 15th state to abolish it.

What all of this means is that there is a tremendous need for attorneys and paralegals across the country, especially in states where death penalty is still applied (like California and Texas), to take up habeas corpus cases (challenging the court’s authority to detain the prisoner) or cases like Skinner’s , arguing for the right to have DNA evidence examined.  The work is challenging and exciting, involving interviewing witnesses, reviewing trial records, and a good amount of detective work.  Look at the roster for the Innocence Project, and you will see many paralegals in their ranks.  With the Supreme Court opening the door just a nudge for death row inmates like Skinner, there will undoubtedly be more need for paralegals down the road, which paralegal schools can provide.  Not to mention that one would be hard pressed to obtain a paralegal job these days without formal education or a certificate – scanning the job postings for paralegals, and one will see that many of those postings require a formal paralegal training or certification, which only a paralegal school can provide.