Teri Duncan Photo: Courtesy
FIERCE DEFENDERS
dellahi. i’s nephew, Fall Ab ris Chang and Salah Ch or at tig es inv i, , Mohamedou Salah llander, Teri Duncan From left, Nancy Ho
UNM alumnae take on tough legal cases and unpopular clients By Leslie Linthicum
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n the film “The Mauritanian,” which won Jodie Foster a best supporting actress Golden Globe award this year, Foster plays attorney Nancy Hollander and Shailene Woodley plays attorney Teri Duncan, colleagues at an Albuquerque law firm who take on a habeas corpus case for Mohamedou Salahi, a Bedouin electrical engineer accused of being an Al Qaida recruiter and terror plot mastermind, who was imprisoned and tortured by American soldiers at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Their work led a federal judge to order Salahi released from the government’s “black site” at Guantanamo after
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MIRAGE MAGAZINE
being held there without charges for seven years. Salahi stayed imprisoned for another seven years while the government appealed and was finally freed in 2016. Both received their law degrees from UNM — Hollander in 1978 and Duncan in 2000. The film tells only a slice of each woman’s distinguished career. Driven to uphold the Constitution even when it’s inconvenient, both have taken on unpopular cases and defended some of the most vilified defendants in the American legal system.
