Matthew Rubenstein serves as Director of the Capital Resource Counsel Project. The Federal Capital Trial Project (or “Trial Project”) of the Defender Services Office of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts is comprised of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel project (“FDPRC”) and the Capital Resource Counsel project (“CRC”). The Trial Project is staffed by experienced federal capital litigators who work in close coordination providing consultation, training, and assistance to courts and counsel to improve the quality of representation and cost-effectiveness of defense services in federal capital prosecution cases. The CRC attorneys, full-time federal defender staff, are often appointed to serve as learned counsel in their role with the Project; the FDPRC attorneys, part-time contractors, are often appointed to serve as learned counsel as CJA counsel outside their role with the Project.
Rubenstein has served as counsel in death penalty cases in state or federal courts in Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Vermont. He has conducted Morgan method life-qualification voir dire in sixteen capital cases and prepared many other capital defense teams for jury selection in jurisdictions across the United States. Rubenstein has tried three capital cases to penalty verdict, provided case consultation to capital defense teams in jurisdictions across the United States, and lectures frequently on capital case preparation and litigation, capital voir dire, and criminal justice issues. Rubenstein has been a Capital Resource Counsel in the federal defender program since 2010. Prior to this, Rubenstein was the founding director of the Oregon Capital Resource Center, a senior staff attorney at the Georgia Capital Defender, and counsel at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center. He has also worked as a public defender at the Federal Public Defender for the District of Oregon and the Seattle-King County Defender Association. Rubenstein is an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University. Rubenstein lives in Portland, Oregon.