Vincent Rivellese is an attorney with Barket Epstein Kearon Aldea & LoTurco, LLP, specializing in appeals and post-conviction practice.

Mr. Rivellese brings a robust perspective to post-conviction practice. He began his career as a trial attorney for New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, where he tried cases for almost three years before he transferred to appeals for four more years. Mr. Rivellese then proceeded to work as law clerk to the Honorable William C. Donnino, a trial judge who sat in Bronx, Queens, and finally Nassau County, for another four years. Mr. Rivellese was then rehired by Robert Morgenthau as a senior appellate attorney, worked through the entire administration of Cyrus Vance and into the administration of Alvin Bragg, and finally transferred to Bronx County District Attorney Darcel Clark’s office in the same capacity for three more years. Thus, Mr. Rivellese has worked in four different counties for four different district attorneys and a judge, both as a trial and appellate litigator. Having spent the last 20 years of his public service career focusing exclusively on post-conviction cases, with the perspective of significant trial practice behind him, he is uniquely positioned to recognize the most promising issues in post-conviction matters and to make sound professional judgments about how best to address them in state and federal courts.

Notable appellate cases on which Mr. Rivellese served as lead counsel included People v. Pedro Hernandez (confessed killer of Etan Patz); People v. Gigi Jordan (pharmaceutical executive who poisoned her autistic son); People v. Stan Li (doctor who recklessly killed patients by selling them medically unwarranted prescriptions), People v. Raphael Golb (lawyer who impersonated Dead Sea Scrolls professor), and many others.

Mr. Rivellese has also handled and supervised dozens of habeas corpus matters in the United States District Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Aside from litigating cases, Mr. Rivellese served for over 20 years as a member of the New York Office of Court Administration’s Committee on Criminal Jury Instructions, which drafts model jury instructions for the benefit of New York State judges, lawyers, and litigants. He also has served actively on other committees, has taught legal writing at New York Law School, and has published articles and lectured on New York criminal law topics.

Mr. Rivellese strives to use superior research and writing skills as a weapon against the injustice of an unfair trial or sentence.

Licenses

• United States Supreme Court (2013)
• United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (2008)
• United States District Court, SDNY (1998)
• New York State (1995)

Education

• The American University, Washington, DC (J.D. cum laude, 1994)
• Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (A.B. 1991)