David Ruhnke brings a wealth of death-penalty trial experience to the Project. As of the Spring of 2007, he had tried a total of 15 capital cases to a verdict, including nine federal cases. Among these is the embassy bombing case tried in the Southern District of New York in the spring of 2001 where the jury spared the lives of two al-Qaeda operatives who had participated in the simultaneous terrorist bombings of American embassies in East Africa, resulting in 224 deaths and thousands of injuries. Mr. Ruhnke tried the first post-1988 federal death penalty cases in the Eastern, Southern and Northern Districts of New York as well as the first such case in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. He is a former Assistant Federal Public Defender and his been in private practice for the past 25 years with his wife and frequent trial partner, Jean D. Barrett (who is also Resource Counsel) and practices primarily in the federal courts in New York City. He lectures frequently on the defense of capital cases.