Matthew B. Larsen
Attorney
(212) 417-8725
Before joining the Appeals Bureau, Matt Larsen served as a deputy federal public defender in Los Angeles. Significant victories there include Munoz Santos v. Thomas, 830 F.3d 987 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc) (holding judges may not ignore evidence that the accusations supporting someone's extradition were gotten by torture); United States v. Gardenhire, 784 F.3d 1277 (9th Cir. 2015) (vacating 2½ year prison sentence for teenager who aimed handheld laser pointer at airplane half a mile away); Clark v. Cate, 581 Fed. Appx. 654 (9th Cir. 2014) (ordering evidentiary hearing on whether man serving 55 years for murder is actually innocent); Knight v. Ahlin, 714 F.3d 1117 (9th Cir. 2013) (granting habeas relief given man's unconstitutionally long pretrial detention); United States v. Grant, 682 F.3d 827 (9th Cir. 2012) (reversing man's conviction given invalid search warrant and police officers' lack of good faith); United States v. Gonzalez et al., 502 Fed. Appx. 665 (9th Cir. 2012) (vacating the convictions and sentences of three men given judge's failure to abide by guilty-plea procedures).
Before becoming a public defender, Mr. Larsen clerked for Judge Wilfred Feinberg, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Judge Iain Bonomy, of the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and N.Y.U. School of Law.