John received his B.A. with honors from the University of West Florida and his J.D. from Cumberland Law School in 1987. He practices exclusively criminal defense work on the trial and appellate levels throughout the State of Alabama and in a variety of federal trial and appellate courts.
He is a past president of the Alabama Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, the Greater Birmingham Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, and the Legal Aid Society of Birmingham. He is a life member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and he has been board certified as a Criminal Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy and has served as the Board’s State Coordinator in Alabama. He was the CJA Panel Representative and Resource Counsel for the United States District Court of the Northern District of Alabama for ten years and also served as the 11th Circuit’s Representative to and for 3 years served as the Chief CJA Panel Representative in the United States to the Defender Services Advisory Group for the Administrative Office of Courts in Washington. He has been appointed by the Alabama Supreme Court to serve on the Alabama Criminal Rules Committee and the Alabama Pattern Criminal Jury Instructions Committee. He is a faculty member of the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia, and the Georgia Criminal Defense Association’s Bill Daniel Trial Advocacy Program. He is an adjunct faculty member at Cumberland School of Law where he teaches trial advocacy and the Birmingham School of Law where he teaches criminal law, criminal procedure and the Death Penalty. He has been a Fellow in the American Board of Criminal Lawyers and is a Fellow in the American Academy of Criminal Defense Attorneys.
He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America specializing in Non-White Collar and White Collar Criminal Defense, Alabama’s SuperLawyers in the area of criminal defense, and The Birmingham Magazine’s and The Birmingham Business Journal’s Best Lawyers in Birmingham and acknowledged by The American Trial Lawyer’s Association as one of the top 100 trial lawyers in Alabama. He is the 2010 recipient of the Judge Walter P. Gewin Award from CLE Alabama for his contributions to the development and presentation of CLE programs. In 2012 he was named Birmingham’s Lawyer of the Year in Non White Collar Criminal Defense by Best Lawyers in America. John has spoken at numerous CLE programs across the country devoted to the teaching and training of criminal defense lawyers.
HONORS & AWARDS
Member (Past President) Alabama Criminal Defense Lawyers Association
Member (Past President) Greater Birmingham Criminal Defense Lawyers Association
Life Member- National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Member (Executive Committee) Birmingham Bar Association
Fellow- American Academy of Criminal Defense Lawyers
