Christopher Slobogin was honored with Vanderbilt University’s 2020 Harvie Branscomb Distinguished Professor Award. The award, which pays tribute to Vanderbilt’s fourth chancellor, recognizes Vanderbilt faculty for creative research and teaching and service to students, colleagues and society at large.
Slobogin holds the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law and also serves as an affiliate professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt School of Medicine. He has taken a leadership role in drafting model statutes to govern policing; in addressing issues of mental disability and the death penalty; and in advocating for protection of privacy in the modern age.
“Chris Slobogin is among the nation’s leading scholars of criminal procedure, mental health law and juvenile justice,” said Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier. “He has continually advocated for society’s most vulnerable members, impacting many lives.”
Slobogin has directed the law school’s Criminal Justice Program since 2009. The author of more than 100 articles, books and chapters on topics relating to criminal law and procedure, mental health law and evidence, he is one of the five most cited criminal law and procedure law professors in the country over the past five years, according to the Leiter Report, and one of the top 60 most cited law professors overall from 2010-2020, according to Hein Online. His work on the Fourth Amendment and technology has been particularly influential. His books on mental disability and criminal law have been published by the University of Chicago, Harvard University and Oxford University presses, and his scholarly articles have appeared in leading journals such as the California Law Review, Chicago Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern Law Review, Pennsylvania Law Review, Stanford Law Review and Virginia Law Review.
Slobogin has served as reporter for three American Bar Association task forces addressing Law Enforcement and Technology, the Insanity Defense, and Mental Disability and the Death Penalty. He was chairman of the ABA’s task force charged with revising the Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards and of its Florida Assessment team for the Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project. He is currently an Associate Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Principles of Police Investigation Project.
In recognition for his work in mental health law, in 2016 Professor Slobogin received both the American Board of Forensic Psychology’s Distinguished Contribution Award and the American Psychology-Law Society’s Distinguished Contribution of Psychology and Law Award; only a total of five law professors have received either of these awards in their 30-year history, and none has received both awards.
Before joining Vanderbilt’s law faculty, Slobogin held the Stephen C. O’Connell Chair at the University of Florida’s Fredric G. Levin College of Law. His work has been cited in more than 200 judicial opinions, including three U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and over 3500 law review articles. He earned his undergraduate degree at Princeton University and both a J.D. and an LL.M. from the University of Virginia Law School. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Kiev University Law School in Ukraine in 1987.
The Harvie Branscomb Distinguished Professor Award goes to one Vanderbilt University faculty member each year. The award was established in 1963 to honor retiring Chancellor Harvie Branscomb.