Mark J. Reichel is currently a criminal and civil attorney

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 in Sacramento, California

Sacramento, California

Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...

 and a partner in the law firm Reichel & Plesser, LLP. He is also the vice chairman of the Sacramento board of the American Civil Liberties Union

American Civil Liberties Union

The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...

. Reichel has been involved in several prominent criminal and civil cases including: United States v. Eric McDavid

Eric McDavid

Eric McDavid, , is a green anarchist and vegan convicted of conspiring to use fire or explosives to damage corporate and government property. While U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott has called McDavid the first person in the U.S...

and United States v. Grubbs

United States v. Grubbs

United States v. Grubbs, 547 U.S. 90 was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the constitutionality of "anticipatory" search warrants under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution...

.

Education and accolades

Reichel attended collage the McGeorge School of Law

McGeorge School of Law

University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law is a private, ABA approved law school in the Oak Park neighborhood of the city of Sacramento, California. It is part of the University of the Pacific....

 in Sacramento, California. He was selected as a Finalist for the Best Brief and Best Oral Argument Award as well as giving the commencement speech for his graduating class of 1991. Shortly after graduating from law school, Mark handled a civil rights lawsuit in a case that was featured across the nation and highlighted in the December 1992 issue of Life

Life (magazine)

Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....

magazine. Reichel is also a 1995 graduate of the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia

Macon, Georgia

Macon is a city located in central Georgia, US. Founded at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is part of the Macon metropolitan area, and the county seat of Bibb County. A small portion of the city extends into Jones County. Macon is the biggest city in central Georgia...

. Reichel has also been selected to the "Top Attorneys in Northern California" for 2008 by San Francisco magazine in their August 2008 edition.

Career

Reichel spent 13 years as a trial attorney for the Federal Public Defender in Sacramento. Reichel handled thousands of cases over these 13 years. One of the most celebrated cases in Mark's career came as he took United States v. Grubbs all the way from arraignment to argument in front of the United States Supreme Court. Reichel argued in this case that the Fourth Amendment

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause...

 requires officers to provide a copy of the search warrant to the homeowner when conducting a search.

After leaving the Federal Defender, Mark entered private practice in 2005, founding the Law Offices of Mark Reichel. Reichel became law partners with Steve Plesserhttp://www.reichelplesser.com/about-steve-plesser.html, a prominent Sacramento criminal defense attorney, in May, 2010 with the foundinghttp://edca.typepad.com/eastern_district_of_calif/2010/06/announcing-new-sacramento-criminal-defense-partnership-reichel-plesser.html of Reichel & Plesser, LLPhttp://www.reichelplesser.com/index.html.

Soon thereafter, the firm, as part of a coordinated defense team, enjoyed a much publicizedhttp://www.startribune.com/nation/113249449.html victory when the U.S. Department of Justice issued a press releasehttp://www.justice.gov/usao/cae/news/docs/2011/01-10-11MotionToDismiss.html announcing dismissal of all charges against prominent members of the Hmong community, (at one point the indictment included Hmong community leader and war hero, General Vang Pao

Vang Pao

Vang Pao was a Lieutenant General in the Royal Lao Army. He was an ethnic Hmong and a leader of the Hmong American community in the United States.-Early life:...

), who were wrongly accused of plotting to overthrow the government of Laos. The failed prosecution had inspired massive rallies in support of the accusedhttp://www.modbee.com/2010/03/16/1089128/thousands-of-hmong-supporters.html http://www.kcra.com/news/22841150/detail.html and had been roundly criticized as a betrayal of the brave Hmong who had fought on behalf of the United States during the Vietnam War.http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0111/Legendary_Hmong_general_prosecuted_by_feds_dies.html