Criminal Justice News and Events

Chris Slobogin receives the 2023 Earl Sutherland Prize for Achievement in Research

Aug. 26, 2023—The Sutherland Prize is Vanderbilt’s premier recognition of Vanderbilt faculty whose achievements in research and scholarship have garnered significant critical recognition. Slobogin has authored more than 200 books, articles, and chapters on topics related to criminal law and procedure, mental health law, and evidence.

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Farhang Heydari Joins Vanderbilt Law Faculty

Aug. 7, 2023—Heydari’s research centers around society’s reliance on policing and criminal law

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Starting Again: Clinic Students Help Women Survivors of Violence Expunge Records

Apr. 11, 2023—The Youth Opportunity Clinic (YOC) and the Criminal Practice Clinic teamed up this year to work on a joint project supporting programming for local non-profit Thistle Farms. Thistle Farms works with women survivors of trafficking, prostitution, and addiction by ensuring access to safe housing and financial independence. General Sessions Judge Lynda Jones approached Youth Opportunity...

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Criminal Justice News and Events


Internationally renowned neuroscientist Anthony Wagner delivers inaugural Weaver Distinguished Lecture in Law and Neuroscience

Mar. 24, 2023—Wagner, who is deputy director of Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, addressed his pioneering research on the cognitive neuroscience of memory.

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Chris Slobogin discusses virtual searches with Lawfare senior editor Alan Rozenshtein in Dec. 19 Lawfare podcast

Dec. 19, 2022—Slobogin is the author of "Virtual Searches: Regulating the Covert World of Technological Policing" and a leading analyst of the impact of government surveillance that involves remote electronic monitoring of digital information on Americans' individual privacy and security. He discusses the implications of the transformation from physical searches and seizures to monitoring electronic data with host Alan Rozenshtein in the Dec. 19, 2022, Lawfare podcast.

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Yesha Yadav discusses the arrest of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in CNN International interview

Dec. 16, 2022—Financial regulation expert Yadav discusses the federal charges against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who faces an eight-count criminal indictment that includes charges of fraud and conspiracy and violating campaign finance laws in the wake of the collapse of his cryptocurrency empire, with CNN International news anchor Rosemary Church.

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Article co-authored by Ed Rubin proposes that states create single regulatory agencies to manage and set standards for police, courts and corrections

Oct. 13, 2022—"Criminal Justice through Management: From Police, Prosecutors, Courts and Prisons to a Modern Administrative Agency," an Oregon Law Review article Rubin co-authored with Malcolm Feeley, is reported on in an Oct. 12 Crime Report article by James Van Bramer.

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The Hyatt Fund presents Anthony Ray Hinton, exonerated after 30 years on Alabama’s death row, Sept. 23 at 12:30 p.m.

Sep. 20, 2022—Hinton was convicted of two murders in 1985 and when exonerated through the invention of the Equal Justie Initiative. His talk is sponsored by the Law Students for Social Justice and the George Barrett Social Justice Program and made possible by the Hyatt Student Activities Fund.

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Brian Ruben named 2022 George Barrett Social Justice Fellow

Jun. 24, 2022—Ruben will work with the Colorado Center on Law and Policy to support the development of an automated process for criminal record sealing.

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Bryan J. Teresi receives 2022 Founder’s Medal for First Honors

May. 13, 2022—22 members of the class of 2022 were honored with academic, citizenship and journal awards at Commencement.

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Mike Newton discusses the challenges of investigating war crimes when the conflict is ongoing with journalist Natasha Fatah

Apr. 7, 2022—Newton has been a senior adviser to the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the U.S. State Department. In this interview with Natasha Fatah of CBS News, he talks about how the International Criminal Court will investigate possible war crimes by Russia while the war is ongoing.

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“Patient or Prisoner: Hospitals as Carceral Settings,” a lecture by Ji Seon Song, scheduled April 1

Mar. 30, 2022—Song is an assistant professor of law at University of Calfornia Irvine. Her scholarship examines the deployment of policing authority and its effects on racial minority and other marginalized groups. Her lecture, scheduled from 12:30 to 1:30, Friday, April 1, is free and open to the public and available via Zoom.

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Watch now: Slobogin discusses criminal justice reform with Cyntoia Brown-Long and Gov. Bill Haslam

Mar. 19, 2022—Chris Slobogin, who directs the law school's Criminal Justice Program, moderated "Reform for Redemption," a March 18 discussion on criminal justice reform with Cyntoia Brown-Long, who was incarcerated as a juvenile, and former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, who granted Brown clemency. Watch the event, which was sponsored by the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, now.

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Ed Cheng’s proposed new approach to scientific evidence is the focus of Villanova Law symposium March 18

Mar. 17, 2022—Cheng’s 2022 Vanderbilt Law Review article, “The Consensus Rule: A New Approach to Scientific Evidence,” will be the focus of a day-long symposium March 18 at Villanova Law School, where Cheng’s proposal that the legal system should defer to expert communities rather than reach independent decisions will be critically evaluated by scholars in the field.

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Chris Slobogin to moderate criminal justice reform panel featuring Cyntoia Brown Long and former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam March 15

Mar. 2, 2022—The event, “Reform for Redemption: Cyntoia Brown Long and Gov. Bill Haslam on Criminal Justice Reform and the Power of Mercy,” will be held in Langford Auditorium and livestreamed at 6 p.m. March 15. Now an author and advocate, Brown was a trafficking victim when she was convicted of murder at 16. She was later granted clemency by Gov. Haslam. Professor Slogobin will moderate a discussion about criminal justice reform. The public is invited to attend in person or virtually.

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Work by Mike Newton and VLS Practice Lab Students to support Iraqi judges profiled in Tennessean article

Dec. 22, 2021—Newton's work with Iraqi judges is funded by a grant from the U.S. State Department. The goal is to help Iraqi courts prosecute ISIS and process counterrorism cases in accordance with international human rights norms. The article quotes Practice Lab students Emily Webb '22 and Cait Martins '22, who worked to develop a 300-page manual to support the casework of attorneys in international criminal tribunals.

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Work by Mike Newton and VLS Practice Lab students to support Iraqi judges profiled in Tennessean article

Dec. 14, 2021—"How this Vanderbilt law professor and his student are helping Iraqis handle thousands of ISIS cases," an article by Mariah Timms, appeared in the Dec. 13, 2021, edition of The Tennessean. Timms' article profiles Newton's work helping Iraqi judges rebuild their nation's court system and prosecute a backlog of ISIS cases, some involving genocide charges.

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Free Justice, a book by Sara Mayeux chronicling the debate about public defense, discussed in New York Review of Books essay by Sarah Seo

Dec. 3, 2021—Mayeux's book is one of three books addressing public defenders and how public defense has evolved since its inception in the Progressive Era. Seo writes that Mayeux's book "leaves readers with a provocative thought: If we moved beyond adversarialism, what kind of legal representation could defendants receive?" Free Justice, published by the University of North Carolina Press, received the 2020 David J. Langum Prize in American Legal History.

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Chris Slobogin’s new book suggests using algorithms may reduce prison sentences and increase use of evidence-based rehabilitative programs

Jul. 28, 2021—In "Just Algorithms: Using Science to Reduce Incarceration and Inform a Jurisprudence of Risk," released by Cambridge University Press, Slobogin supports his thesis that using risk-prediction algorithms to make sentencing decisions could help reduce unnecessary pre-trial detention, mitigate excessively punitive bail and prison sentences, and divert more eligible candidates to appropriate rehabilitative programs.

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Research by Erin Meyers JD/PhD’21 shows arrests have high economic costs even when no conviction results

Jul. 12, 2021—Meyers found that more than half of Black men had been arrested by the time they were young adults but that Black men were much less likely to be convicted than white men. Her dissertation, The Criminal Justice System and Social Mobility in the United States, documents the negative impacts of over-arrest on the employment and educational opportunities of Black men.

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