Robert McWhirter - Of Dogma and Desire

Of Dogma and Desire: Saying What You Believe About the First Amendment

Ah, the First Amendment! – front and center of the culture wars.

This dynamically illustrated PowerPoint charts the history of not just our right to speak, but our right to believe. It shows how the First Amendment’s speech and religion clauses connect. From the Persians to the Greeks, Hebrews, Romans, and Puritans (to name a few), not only has our rights of speech and creed grow but the concept of freedom as well.

The topics include:

• What did the framers believe and say?

• Press and journalism at the founding

• Are we a “Christian Nation”?

• Is God in the Constitution?

• Do we really know obscenity when we see it?

• The Common Law and Christianity

• What is that “wall” between church and state?

• Symbols of Religion and Speech

• Speech in War

• The market place of ideas

The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/7/b/1/e/600_445711518.jpeg

Bio:

ROBERT J. MCWHIRTER

Certified Specialist in Criminal Law Supervising Attorney, ASU Alumni Law Group

Robert J. McWhirter is a nationally and internationally known speaker and author on trial advocacy, immigration law, and the history of the bill of rights. He is a Certified Specialist in Criminal Law with the State Bar of Arizona and first chair qualified to defend capital cases by the Arizona Supreme Court.

The American Bar Association will publish Mr. McWhirter’s upcoming book BILLS, QUILLS, AND STILLS: THE HISTORY OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS (working title) in 2014. The American Bar Association has published his books THE CRIMINAL LAWYER’S GUIDE TO IMMIGRATION LAW: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, 2nd Ed. 2006 and THE CITIZENSHIP FLOWCHART, 2007. In 2010, in Padilla v. Kentucky Justice Alito extensively quoted from his book. Mr. McWhirter has served on the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section and on the Standard Committee writing the CRIMINAL JUSTICE STANDARDS.

Mr. McWhirter has extensively taught in Latin America on comparative criminal procedure and trail advocacy in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Uruguay and has been a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Chile and the University of Chile. In 2010-2011, Mr. McWhirter served in El Salvador administering an $11 million USAID project to reform the justice system where he successfully developed and oversaw programs and trainings for the Salvadoran courts, police, prosecutors, and public defenders. Mr. McWhirter still travels to Latin America, most recently in August 2013 on a lecture tour as a speaker grant recipient for the United States State Department and in Uruguay training prosecutors.

In 2009, Mr. McWhirter was named a Southwest Super Lawyer, a rare instance for a public defender. Mr. McWhirter is also the 2009 recipient of the Phoenix Saint Thomas More Award and the immediate past president of Arizona Attorney’s for Criminal Justice.

Mr. McWhirter is currently a Supervising Attorney at the ASU Law Alumni Group defending clients accused of crime.