The San Diego lawyer was chosen by Boston’s federal public defender Miriam Conrad. A  request to appoint law professor David Bruck of Washington & Lee University , was turned down although the court agreed to re-consider Mr Bruck, who runs the school’s dealth penalty defense clinic, post indictment, according to The Daily Beast.

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Clarke has a sting of well known defendants to her bow, including the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski and Jared Loughner  who killed six people in Tuscon, Arizona including a federal judge  at a rally for congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford who was wounded in the attack.
Ms Clarke’s fellow defense attorney Laurie Shanks says of the appointment: ‘In addition to being a brilliant lawyer interms of knowing the law and persuading a jury, perhaps her most impressive quality is her ability to connect and understand individuals that the rest of the world despises.’