Paul E Shelton

Paul E. Shelton is a criminal defense attorney, currently practicing as a trial attorney at the Office of the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington & Idaho in Yakima, Washington. Paul represents clients in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington on felony and misdemeanor charges, as well as supervised release violations, in federal court in Yakima, Richland, and Spokane.

Paul grew up in Louisiana and attended Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He graduated in the top 10% of his class and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. Additionally, he served as Senior Notes & Comments Editor for Volume 87 of the Tulane Law Review, won the Senior Appellate Intraschool Moot Court Competition, and practiced as a third-year law student as a member of the Tulane Civil Litigation Clinic. He also was a player/coach for Eminent Domination, an IM softball team primarily consisting of Tulane Law students. Eminent Domination played in the championship game for 3 straight seasons, winning 2 championships.

After graduating, Paul clerked for the Honorable Tom Stagg in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana in Shreveport. Judge Stagg was serving his 40th year on the bench, and Paul was his last term law clerk. Following his clerkship, Paul moved to Richmond, Virginia, and joined the Federal Public Defender’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia. In addition to representing clients facing federal criminal charges, Paul filed motions seeking sentence reductions for over 300 defendants based on retroactive amendments to federal drug sentencing guidelines. Many of these defendants had their sentences reduced, including multiple defendants whose life sentences were reduced to a term of years. Paul was also the lead attorney in Richmond seeking relief pursuant to the Supreme Court’s ruling in US v. Johnson (2015), filing habeas petitions for over 100 clients. Paul successfully obtained relief for many clients, resulting in immediate release from prison in some cases.

Outside of the courtroom, Paul enjoys hiking, kayaking, playing tennis, watching movies, and spending time with his wife.