Professor Guernsey directs the law school’s Federal Criminal Defense Clinic, which is one of only two trial-level federal criminal defense clinics in the nation. Under her supervision, law students represent indigent people charged with federal offenses in the U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Iowa at all stages of the proceedings from initial appearance through direct appeal. Following the passage of the First Step Act of 2018, Prof. Guernsey started the Clinic’s “Decarceration Project,” which focuses on sentence-reduction litigation under 18 U.S.C. § 3582 and 28 U.S.C. § 2241, as well as Executive Clemency. The goal is to obtain a “second look” at the sentences of people who are serving inordinately long terms of imprisonment given nonretroactive changes in the law or under conditions of confinement that make their imprisonment unduly punitive.

Before joining the faculty, Professor Guernsey was the Supervising Attorney for the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, where she provided direct representation to indigent people in a variety of federal cases, including drug trafficking and manufacture, firearms, fraud, child exploitation, serious violent/sexual crime under the Major Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 1153) and the Assimilative Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 13), and habeas-corpus petitions (28 U.S.C. §§ 2254 and 2255), among others. 

Prior to her employment with the Federal Defenders, Professor Guernsey clerked for the Honorable Michael J. Melloy, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and the Honorable Karen Nelson Moore, U.S Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Practice and Teaching: 

• Federal Criminal Defense
• Compassionate Release Work
• Criminal Procedure (Adjudication)
• Trial Advocacy
• Appellate Advocacy