CLICK HERE to register for our Osborn Awards reception on Thursday, Sept. 26 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Parizade. Please consider buying a sponsorship to support CDPL’s work. Also, new this year, please consider donating an additional ticket to a young attorney or other member of our community who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford to come. We look forward to seeing you for an evening of food, drinks and good company!

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CDPL has always known that it takes a team to win a death penalty case. Often, an attorney’s most trusted teammate is the mitigation investigator. Together, they undertake some of the most grueling and emotional work of a capital case: tracking down family members, investigating crime facts, sorting through a lifetime’s worth of records and documents, in addition to spending many hours with the client. Often, the results of that collaboration make the difference between life and death for our clients. That’s why this year, CDPL’s award for outstanding work in death penalty cases goes to a team: Bob Trenkle, an attorney who has spent three decades defending capital clients, and Etta Blankenship, the private investigator, who also does mitigation work, who has worked beside Bob on many of his death penalty cases.

“Bob and Etta exemplify what we mean when we say team defense,” said CDPL Executive Director Gretchen M. Engel. “They have shown us over decades what it means to care about clients and to devote yourself to saving people’s lives.”

Bob and Etta began working together in 1991, when both worked for the Orange County Public Defender’s Office. Bob has now represented more than 100 capital clients, and taken eight cases to capital trial, as well as representing several capital clients in post-conviction proceedings. Etta has been his first pick as an investigator on every one of his cases. In 2001, the two worked together to shape North Carolina’s first Capital Defender’s Office. They helped set the capital defense standards that have made death penalty verdicts rare in North Carolina. Both have also devoted untold hours to mentoring other capital defense teams throughout the state.

Bob has worked as a public defender in both Florida and North Carolina. He also taught law at the University of Florida Law School. He has been with the firm of Edwards & Trenkle since 2002. He is a Board Certified lawyer in both federal and state criminal law. He has lectured and taught attorneys on defending capital murder charges in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas, most recently in April. Bob has volunteered as an instructor at numerous training seminars on capital defense, and defense attorneys across the state say he is always willing to take their call and offer as much of his time as they need.

Etta was licensed as a private investigator in 2003. At that time, she began traveling the state doing fact and mitigation investigations in capital cases. Etta is known for her caring touch with clients and building the trust required to help them make good decisions about their defense. In 2017, in addition to dealing with her own cases, she flew to be with a friend whose brother was facing execution in Arkansas. Etta went to the prison with her friend while she had her final visit with her brother and was also at the prison with her friend during the execution of her brother.  Afterwards, Etta wrote this moving piece about that experience.

Bob and Etta never rest on their victories. As soon as they win one case, they move on to saving the next life. We hope that, at our award reception in September, they will finally take a moment to celebrate their many accomplishments. BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE.

The J. Kirk Osborn Award

It has now been more than a decade since we lost J. Kirk Osborn, one of the giants of the capital defense community. Kirk defended more than a dozen capital cases and never had a client sentenced to death. His advocacy and deep compassion for his clients saved many lives, and inspired other attorneys to follow in his footsteps. Each year, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation honors Kirk’s legacy by presenting the J. Kirk Osborn Award for lifelong zealous advocacy, compassion for indigent men and women facing the death penalty, and leadership among capital defense attorneys.

On October 11, CDPL honored two of our community’s most outstanding capital defense attorneys, law partners Frank Wells and Jon Megerian. [Go here to read more about their exceptional careers.] Despite a hurricane and a power outage, we managed to have a powerful night celebrating their many accomplishments.

Thanks to photographer Les Todd for volunteering his time to document the evening.

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During more than 20 years as law partners in Asheboro, Jon Megerian and Frank Wells have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to excellence in capital defense. Their tenacity in and out of the courtroom prompted the Center for Death Penalty Litigation to make them joint recipients of this year’s J. Kirk Osborn Award. They exemplify the leadership, determination, and compassion that are Kirk’s legacy.

Jon and Frank have distinguished themselves by winning life-saving verdicts in some of the most difficult capital cases. In 2011, their client Robert Stewart faced the death penalty for a shooting rampage in a Carthage nursing home that left seven elderly patients and a nurse dead. Stewart was convicted of second-degree murder after Megerian and Wells proved to the jury that Stewart had overdosed on medications and did not even remember his actions on the day of the shooting. And at the 2006 capital trial of Keith Hall, who was accused of murdering four people in a Gaston County trailer park, Megerian and Wells frontloaded powerful mental health evidence. As a result, although Hall was convicted, jurors deadlocked at sentencing after the confounded DA contended that they should not recognize the defendant’s intellectual disability, and should rather attribute his problems to his paranoid schizophrenia. And in 2004, just 15 hours before his scheduled execution, Charles Walker received a stay. Walter ultimately won a new trial and was released from prison.

Jon and Frank have also offered invaluable help to other defense attorneys, and have always been willing to guide and empower fellow lawyers. They have served as teachers at CDPL’s Capital College and facilitated many trainings on the Wymore jury selection method, allowing other lawyers to select juries that will save their clients’ lives. With their own work, they have raised expectations for attorney performance; in their roles as teachers and mentors, they help elevate their peers to meet those standards.

Frank is a member of the NC Advocates for Justice, National Legal Aid and Defenders Association, and the National Association for Criminal Defense Lawyers, as well as a past president of the Randolph County Bar Association. He is also a member of CDPL’s board of directors. Jon is a former member of the Board of Governors for the NC Academy of Trial Lawyers, and a past Bar Councilor for the NC State Bar.

“Their brains, passion, skill, creativity, generosity, tenacity, resilience, compassion, and quick humor – gentle and reflective on Frank’s part, ferocious and sarcastic on Jon’s – make them ideal recipients of the high honor that accompanies this award,” said Janet Moore, former N.C. assistant appellate defender and now a professor of law at the University of Cincinnati. “They literally ‘raise the bar’ by providing a model towards which others can aspire.”