The legal system plays a critical role in responding to terrorism. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York has a long history of prosecuting terrorism cases and, in many ways, is leading the way in structuring these prosecutions.

Join NCITE for a webinar with Trini E. Ross, U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York, about the challenges of prosecuting terrorism cases. The discussion will be moderated by Seamus Hughes, NCITE senior research faculty and policy associate. 

• Trini E. Ross became the United States attorney for the Western District of New York on Oct. 11, 2021. She is the first Black woman to become the United States attorney in that district. As U.S. attorney, Ross is responsible for overseeing the prosecution of any federal criminal case brought within the 17 counties of western New York. In 2022, Ross was appointed to serve on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys (AGAC), spending a year-and-a-half in that role. Ross also served as the Director of Investigations, Legal Division, with the National Science Foundation’s Office of Inspector General.

• Seamus Hughes is a senior faculty member at NCITE studying domestic and international terrorism prosecutions in the U.S. Hughes worked at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), serving as a lead staffer on U.S. government efforts to implement a national terrorism prevention strategy and worked closely with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, fusion centers, and U.S. Attorney Offices.  Prior to his work for NCTC, Hughes served as the senior counterterrorism advisor for the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Additionally, Hughes is a research journalist at the New York Times. In 2022, Hughes was part of a New York Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for stories on law enforcement in America.