Darrel J. Gardner

Darrel J. Gardner (born 1957 in Anchorage, Alaska) is a criminal defense lawyer in Alaska. He is a founding director and former president of the Alaska Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; former president of the Alaska Chapter of the Federal Bar Association; Lawyer Representative to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference; and member of the Board of Governors of the Alaska Bar Association.

Early life and education

Darrel Gardner was born in Anchorage, in the Territory of Alaska, shortly before statehood. His parents were both from small towns in Minnesota, and his aunt and uncle, Wilhelmina ("Minnie") and Frank Swanda, were among the 203 original Colony families of Palmer and the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. His cousin, Dorothy Swanda Jones, was elected Mayor of the Mat-Su Borough; the Mat-Su Borough Administration building in Palmer is named in her honor. Gardner graduated from East Anchorage High School and then worked construction for a year on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline project before commencing his higher education. Gardner received his B.A. in English from Santa Clara University, California in 1980; he was a member of Alpha Sigma Nu, the National Jesuit Honor Society, and Phi Alpha Theta, the National History Honor Society. During his junior year of college Gardner had studied as an exchange student at the University of London, and then at the Institute of European Studies in Paris. Following college, Gardner moved to San Francisco. Gardner obtained his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of California, San Francisco Hastings College of the Law in 1983. Gardner attained honors in moot court during his second year of law school, and he was thereafter selected to be a member of the 1982-83 Hastings Moot Court Board.

Legal career

Gardner began his career as private civil trial lawyer at a small firm in Anchorage in 1983. In the early 1990s he joined the Alaska Office of Public Advocacy as an Assistant Public Advocate. At the time, Gardner was the state's only traveling felony attorney engaged in statewide criminal defense of class A and unclassified felony crimes. Gardner left state employment in 2003 to open his own private criminal law practice emphasizing the defense of serious felony and federal prosecutions. In 2012 Gardner left private practice and returned to public service as an Assistant Federal Public Defender for the United States Courts, District of Alaska.

Professional activities and recognition

Over the course of his career, Gardner has defended hundreds of felony cases including a "[...] and chainsaw dismemberment" case in Palmer, Alaska in the 1990s. Gardner represented Carl Abuhl from Kitchiken, who allegedly beat a man to death with a baseball bat and then burned the man's cat by placing it in an operational microwave oven. Although tried for first-degree [...], the jury returned a verdict of [...] in the second-degree. Abuhl attained even more notoriety when several years later when he committed Alaska's first in custody [...] at Spring Creek Correctional Center by strangling his cell mate to death, because the man had bragged AbOUT murdering his own mother. Gardner also represented an alleged co-conspirator in a highly publicized "militia" case involving a plot to kill a federal judge and his family in Fairbanks, Alaska.

In 2008 Gardner was appointed to the federal Criminal Justice Act Panel for the District of Alaska, and he was later appointed to the CJA Panel Advisory Committee. From 2012-2014 Gardner served as the President of the Alaska Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. In 2012 Gardner was appointed by the Chief Judge of United States Courts for the District of Alaska as a Lawyer Representative to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference. He was also selected as a member of the District Court Fund Committee. As president of the Alaska Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, Gardner participated as a presenter at events in 2014 naming the "Robert Boochever Federal Courthouse" in Juneau, and the "James M. Fitzgerald Courthouse and Federal Building" in Anchorage.

In 2009, Gardner and three other Anchorage criminal defense lawyers founded the Alaska Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers ("AKACDL"). AKACDL is a professional association serving the needs of criminal defense attorneys in Alaska. AKACDL hosts the annual "AKACDL All*Stars Conference," a two day legal education program in Girdwood featuring four nationally acclaimed criminal defense practitioners. The Alaska Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers was incorporated on November 30, 2009. With almost 200 members having since joined, AKACDL is Alaska's preeminent criminal defense organization. Gardner has served continuously as a director of the organization, and variously as its president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer.

In 2014 Gardner was elected to a three year term on the Board of Governors of the Alaska Bar Association. The Alaska Bar has over 4,000 members; Gardner was elected to one of the four seats representing the Third Judicial District, the largest judicial district in Alaska encompassing Anchorage and all of south central and south western Alaska. Gardner has also served on the Bar Association's Attorney Discipline Hearing Committee, Continuing Legal Education Committee, and Pro bono Committee.

Gardner was selected to the National Trial Lawyers "Top 100," and he has been peer review rated as "AV Preeminent" - the highest possible rating - by Martindale-Hubbell.

Personal

Gardner lives in Anchorage with his wife, Tina Adair, and son Rory.

References

alumni