Christopher Slobogin, director of Vanderbilt’s criminal justice program, has been appointed the Milton Underwood Chair in Law. His inaugural lecture on Friday, Jan. 22, explored the question, “Is the Fourth Amendment Irrelevant in a Technological Age?”
Professor Slobogin’s recent work has addressed how technological advances have changed police work, and why the Supreme Court’s current interpretation of the U.S. Constitution has failed to anticipate this fact and, he says, continued to ignore it.
The result, according to Slobogin, is that in the near future police will no longer have to worry about the probable cause and warrant restrictions that have long regulated their investigations.
An expert in criminal procedure, mental health law and evidence law, Slobogin has authored or co-authored more than 70 articles, books and chapters on these topics. Psychological Evaluations for the Courts, a book he co-authored with another lawyer and two psychologists, is considered the standard-bearer in forensic mental health.
Slobogin also has served as reporter for both the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Law Enforcement and Technology and its Task Force on the Insanity Defense, as well as chair of the Florida Assessment Team for the ABA’s Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project. In addition, he helped draft standards dealing with mental disability and the death penalty that have been adopted by the ABA, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association.
Prior to joining the Vanderbilt faculty in 2008, he held the Stephen C. O’Connell chair at the University of Florida’s Fredric G. Levin College of Law. Slobogin has a secondary appointment as professor in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine’s department of psychiatry.
Media contact: Jennifer Johnston (615) 322-NEWS
