DMI Events

CRAIG WATKINS is the first African American District Attorney elected in Texas. As District Attorney for Dallas County, his SMART on crime initiatives engages innovative strategies throughout the prosecutorial process and seeks to address the root causes of why offenders commit crime.

Watkins’ received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Prairie View A&M University and a jurist doctorate degree from Texas Wesleyan University School of Law.

Watkins has received numerous awards and recognitions from a multiplicity of organizations and groups. He is a member of Friendship-West Baptist Church, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Prairie View A & M University Alumni Association, NAACP Dallas Branch and is affiliated with many professional and civic organizations. He has received honors and awards from many organizations for his outstanding accomplishments in our community:

Dallas Urban League Torch Award
Eclipse Magazine “Super” lawyers in January 2007 issue
District Attorney Watkins was featured in the March 5, 2007 issue of JET
District Attorney Watkins was featured in the May 2007 issue of Ebony Magazine as one of THE EBONY POWER 150
District Attorney Watkins’ innovative strategies as the new D A in Dallas County has garnered him national and international attention from German TV, New York Times, CNN, 60 Minutes, Washington Post, L A Times, Chicago Tribune just to name a few.

DA Watkins and wife Tanya have three children - Chad, Cale, & Taryn.

ERIC. T. SCHNEIDERMAN grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side where he attended Trinity School. After earning a B.A. in English and Asian Studies at Amherst College, Eric served for two years as a Deputy Sheriff in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where he started the first comprehensive drug and alcohol treatment program at the Berkshire House of Corrections. After graduating with honors from Harvard Law School, Eric clerked for two years in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He later entered private practice and became a partner at the firm of Kirkpatrick and Lockhart.

Eric has worked as an anti-crime advocate for his entire career. He served for over 10 years as counsel to the West Side Crime Prevention Program, representing tenants, neighbors, and community groups in eviction proceedings against crack dens and drug dealers. As a founder of the Attorney General's Anti-Crime Advocates program and a member of the board of the Lawyer's Committee on Violence, Eric recruited, trained, and counseled private attorneys representing community groups striving to protect their neighborhoods from crime.

Eric was elected to the New York State Senate in 1998. He became Chair of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee after only two months in office, and launched a series of unprecedented challenges to incumbent Republican Senators in the 2000 elections. Eric was so effective that the Senate’s conservative leadership—fearful of losing seats in marginal districts—was forced to abandon its long-standing opposition to many key progressive bills. Eric’s efforts were critical in passing the Clinic Access Bill, Hate Crimes legislation, the Women’s Health and Wellness Act, and a host of gun control, environmental and civil rights laws. In 1999, he led the campaign to block the National Rifle Association's "Eddie Eagle" program from becoming a part of New York's elementary school curriculum.

In 2002, the Senate’s leadership redrew Eric’s district to eliminate most of his base and then undertook an unprecedented campaign to throw Republican support behind his opponent in a Democratic primary. With the help of a broad and diverse coalition of activists and volunteers, Eric stood up to this challenge, and won re-election with over 67% of the vote.

From 2003-2006, Eric served as the Senate Deputy Democratic Leader. During that period, the Democratic Conference became the leading voice for reform of New York's calcified state government, and reduced the Republican majority by more than half, picking up four new Democratic seats. With the election of Eliot Spitzer as Governor, the stage is now set for the fulfillment of Eric's ultimate political goal: a Democratic majority in the Senate, and a progressive, effective government for the people of New York State.

Eric has continued his work as a public interest lawyer throughout his years in office. In 2001 and 2003 he served as lead counsel to the Straphangers Campaign in challenging the unlawful practices of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, obtaining an injunction keeping dozens of token booths open and exposing fraud in the MTA’s bookkeeping. In the Senate, he had been a leader in efforts to pass gun control, pro-choice and environmental legislation, to reform the Rockefeller Drug Laws, raise the minimum wage, and to provide universal health care for all New Yorkers. In spite of an unprecedented effort by the Senate’s conservative leaders to silence him, he remains a vocal and visible leader in the battle against the incompetence and gridlock that sustain Albany’s status quo.

Eric lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side with his thirteen-year old daughter Catherine.

JANET DIFIORE was sworn in as the 32nd District Attorney of Westchester County on January 1, 2006.

District Attorney Janet DiFiore has dedicated her career to public service as both a former Judge and prosecutor in Westchester County. District Attorney DiFiore served for more than ten years as an Assistant District Attorney in Westchester County under the administrations of both Carl A. Vergari (1981-1987) and Jeanine F. Pirro (1994-1998). For the last four and one half years of her service as a prosecutor, DA DiFiore served as Chief of Narcotics for the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office, coordinating drug enforcement and prosecution efforts within Westchester County on behalf of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. DA DiFiore also served the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office in the Rackets and the Homicide and Special Investigations Bureaus.

Elected as a Judge of the Westchester County Court in 1998 and as a Justice of the New York State Supreme Court in 2002, DA DiFiore has presided over hundreds of cases in the County Court, the Family Court and the New York State Supreme Court.

On February 14, 2003 DA DiFiore was appointed by Chief Judge Judith Kaye to serve as the Supervising Judge for the Criminal Courts in the 9th Judicial District. As Supervising Judge, her responsibilities included oversight of court operations for the criminal courts of Westchester, Dutchess, Orange, Rockland and Putnam counties. DA DiFiore served as Supervising Judge of the Criminal Courts for the 9th Judicial District until May 2005 when she resigned her position to run for District Attorney.

In addition to her courtroom responsibilities, DA DiFiore served on Chief Judge Judith Kaye’s Commission on the Future of Criminal Indigent Defense Services, as the NYS Unified Court System’s Coordinator for Access to Justice Initiatives, 9th Judicial District, as a member of the Office of Court Administration’s Committee on Criminal Jury Instructions, on the Westchester County Criminal Justice Advisory Board, on the Westchester County Domestic Violence Council, on the Advisory Board of the Westchester Holocaust Commission’s Juvenile Offender Program, on the Task Force on the Future of Probation the State of New York and on Chief Judge Kaye’s Commission on Drugs and the Courts. DA DiFiore has lectured, both in New York and abroad, to judges and lawyers on domestic violence, the effects of domestic violence on children, ethics, problem solving courts and effective case management techniques.

DA DiFiore is a life-long resident of Westchester County. She has effectively served on the Boards and in leadership positions of numerous professional, civic and local school organizations, including the Columbian Lawyers Association of Westchester County, Westchester Italian Cultural Center and the Westchester Women’s Bar Association.

She was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the Westchester Children's Museum and The Pace University School of Law Board of Visitors.

District Attorney Janet DiFiore is married to Dennis E. Glazer, a partner at the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell. They live in Westchester County with their three children.

BARRY SCHECK is a Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, where he has served for more than twenty-seven years, and is the Co-Director of the Innocence Project. He is Emeritus Director of Clinical Education, Co-Director of the Trial Advocacy Programs, and the Jacob Burns Center for the Study of Law and Ethics. Prof. Scheck received his undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1971 and his J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley in 1974. He worked for three years as a staff attorney at The Legal Aid Society in New York City before joining the faculty at Cardozo.

Prof. Scheck has done extensive trial and appellate litigation in significant civil rights and criminal defense cases. He has published extensively in these areas, including a book with Jim Dwyer and Peter Neufeld entitled, Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong And How To Make It Right. He has served in prominent positions in many bar associations, including the presidency of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Since 1994 he has been a Commissioner on New York State’s Forensic Science Review Board, a body that regulates all crime and forensic DNA laboratories in the state. From1998 - 2000, he served on the National Institute of Justice's Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence.

For the past fifteen years, Scheck and Neufeld have run the Innocence Project, now an independent non-profit, affiliated with Cardozo Law School, which uses DNA evidence to exonerate the wrongly convicted. The Project also assists police, prosecutors, and defense attorneys in trying to bring about reform in many areas of the criminal justice system, including eyewitness identification procedures, interrogation methods, crime laboratory administration, and forensic science research. To date,206 individuals have been exonerated in the United States through post-conviction DNA testing since 1989. You can read about each of these cases at www.innocenceproject.org.