Schools

Defender of Guantanamo Bay Detainees to Join Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at Stockton College

Thomas Wilner will moderate O'Connor's presentation on March 24.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice (ret.) Sandra Day O’Connor will be joined in her March 24 presentation at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey by Thomas Wilner, an international attorney who successfully represented Guantanamo detainees before the Supreme Court in 2004 and 2008.

Justice O’Connor, the first women appointed to the Supreme Court, is the inaugural speaker for The Pappas Visiting Scholar Series at Stockton.

Justice O’Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and served until 2006. She was awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Barack Obama in 2009.

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Wilner leads the international trade, litigation and government relations practice of Shearman & Sterling LLP.

He was counsel of record in Rasul v. Bush, decided in June 2004, in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the detainees at Guantanamo Bay have the right to habeas corpus, and in Boumediene v. Bush, decided in June 2008, in which the Supreme Court held that the Guantanamo detainees’ right to habeas corpus is protected by the U.S. Constitution. 

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He was also counsel of record in Al Odah v. United States which established the detainees’ right to counsel.

Wilner will serve as moderator for Justice O’Connor’s 6 p.m. presentation in the Sports Center on the main Galloway campus, which seats 3,000. All tickets to the free event have been reserved by members of the Stockton community and the general public.

Stockton Trustee Dean Pappas and his wife, Zoe, established the Dean C. and Zoe S. Pappas Visiting Scholar Endowment Fund in 2012, to bring noted scholars and thought leaders speakers to Stockton for classes, workshops and public events.

For more information on the Pappas Visiting Scholar Series, visit stockton.edu/foundation

--Press release from The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey


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