Professor Jenny Carroll is quoted in The Wall Street Journal about charging violent protesters with sedition.
For more, read “Barr Tells Prosecutors to Consider Charging Violent Protesters with Sedition.”
For more than an hour on Wednesday, faculty and students discussed mass incarceration and criminal justice during a town hall meeting.
The online program drew as many as 100 participants. Sponsored by the Student Bar Association, Black Law Students Association, and the Criminal Law Society, the town hall featured Professor Jenny Carroll, a former public defender, Professor Joyce White Vance, a former U.S. Attorney, Brenita Softley (2L), a prison rights advocate, and Allen Slater (3L), a former policeman and corrections officer. Professor Anil Mujumdar moderated the event.
Panelists examined a wide variety of topics, including what society values, what the criminal justice system currently looks like, and what kind of criminal justice system society would like to have in the future.
Early in the conversation, panelists discussed bias in law enforcement, from arrest to sentencing. Professor Carroll noted the overuse of the criminal justice system as a means to promote safety as well as law and order.
“That contributes directly to a system that says: ‘We do need to lock up children who misbehave at school; we do need to lock up folks, who, regardless of the types of offenses they’re committing, we view as contrary to notions of law and order, and safety,’” Carroll said.
Softley recalled a case she studied as a student in Professor Carroll’s Criminal Law course. The case involved Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old African-American girl accused of stealing a bottle of orange juice and fatally shot by a convenience store owner in 1991. As Softley reviewed the sentencing guidelines, she noted the judge in the case said Soon Ja Du didn’t look like a criminal.
“What does a criminal look like to you? Because growing up, you’re always told that black and brown people are criminals,” she said.
Slater acknowledged that the criminal justice system is biased, but he would prefer to reform it, not abolish it.
“On the one hand, it’s is important to think about prison abolition and to think about how we can do this better,” Slater said, “and on the other hand, we need to introduce some transparency and accountability for the people that are incarcerated now.”
Professor Fred Vars, along with Ian Ayres, published an article, “Gun Owners Support the Right Not to Bear Arms,” in the Emory Law Journal. The article finds broad support of Donna’s Law, a voluntary measure to reduce gun suicide.
Allen Slater (3L) recently published an article in the Berkeley Journal of African-American Law & Policy. His article, “It Should Never Be Justified: A Critical Examination of the Binary Paradigm Used to Categorize Police Shootings,” makes the case for a more nuanced, transparent, and accountable framework for evaluating police shootings.
Professor Joyce White Vance, along with Barbara McQuade, Chuck Rosenberg, Andrew Weissmann, and Mimi Rocah, writes an op-ed for USA Today about President Trump’s record on law and order.
For more, read “Kenosha Visit Reality: Trump is Anything But a ‘Law and Order’ Leader.”
Dean Mark E. Brandon recently announced four new appointments to the faculty and two new appointments to the Executive Staff at The University of Alabama School of Law.
Kara Deal Gamble
Kara Deal Gamble is a graduate of Alabama Law. While a student here, she was Acquisitions Editor of the Alabama Law Review. After graduating she served as a clerk on the Florida First District Court of Appeal and a staff attorney with the Supreme Court of Alabama. Most recently, she has been an associate with Scott Dukes & Geisler in Birmingham, where her practice has focused on civil litigation.
Russell Gold
Russell Gold joins the faculty as an Associate Professor. He previously taught at Wake Forest University School of Law and in the NYU Lawyering Program. During his time at NYU, Professor Gold received the Podell Distinguished Teaching Award. He held a clerkship in the chambers of the Honorable Carlos Lucero on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and was a litigation associate with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in the San Francisco office. Professor Gold’s research engages a range of problems and practices in criminal law and criminal procedure. During the Fall semester, he will teach a section of Criminal Law and will serve as Faculty Advisor for the Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review.
Martha Griffith
Martha Griffith begins her role as Assistant Dean for Administration and Communications with extensive experience at the Law School. Prior to joining the Office of Administration, she worked in both the Admissions and Advancement Offices. Assistant Dean Griffith earned her B.A. and J.D. from The University of Alabama. While a law student, she served as chairman of the Moot Court Board.
Tara Leigh Grove
Tara Leigh Grove joins the Law School as the Charles E. Tweedy, Jr. Endowed Chairholder in Law. She previously served as the Mills E. Godwin, Jr. Professor of Law at William & Mary Law School and as an Assistant Professor at Florida State University College of Law. She has held visiting appointments at Northwestern University School of Law and Harvard Law School. Before entering the legal academy, Professor Grove held a distinguished clerkship with the Honorable Judge Emilio Garza on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and served as an appellate litigator in the U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Grove’s research focuses on the federal judiciary and problems of constitutional law, including especially the separation of powers. While at William & Mary, she received numerous awards for her scholarship and her teaching. During the Fall semester, Professor Grove will teach Federal Jurisdiction. She will also serve as Director of a new Program in Constitutional Studies.
Anita Kay Head
Associate Professor of Legal Writing Anita Kay Head serves as Assistant Dean of Students. In this position, she will chair the Law School’s Honor Council and lead the Law School’s academic support program. She remains a member of our Legal Writing faculty and will also coach the ABA Moot Court teams. An Alabama Law graduate, Dean Head clerked for the Honorable Harold See of the Alabama Supreme Court, and practiced law with the firm of Johnston, Barton, Proctor & Rose LLP in Birmingham.
Joshua Porter
Joshua Porter joins the Law School as Director of Diversity & Inclusion and Assistant Professor of Law in Residence. Professor Porter arrives after working as an attorney in the Atlanta office of the Office of Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education. Prior to that position, he worked in Washington, D.C., as a program manager for Equal Justice Works and as a policy analyst for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. He will teach his first class at Alabama Law in the Spring semester.
Professor Fred Vars writes a letter to the editor of the Arizona Republic that argues the federal government should not execute Lezmond Mitchell on Aug. 26. Mitchell is a member of the Navajo Nation, which opposes the death penalty and has called on President Trump to commute his sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of release. This is the first time the federal government is seeking capital punishment over tribal objection for a crime committed on tribal land.
Professor Tara Leigh Grove is quoted in a Bloomberg story about what a Trump reelection could mean for the federal judiciary.
For more, read “Trump’s Court Redo Is Set to Be Even Broader If He Wins New Term.”
Professor Adam Steinman reviews a recent article by Tonja Jacobi and Matthew Sag, Taking Laughter Seriously at the Supreme Court, 72 Vand. L. Rev. 1423 (2019).
For more, read “No Laughing Matter.”
Professor Shalini Bhargava Ray is scheduled to present her paper, “Abdication Through Enforcement,” this fall at the 2020 Administrative Law New Scholarship Roundtable. The article argues a president can abdicate his duty of faithful execution in immigration law by enforcing the law, for example, by deporting deportable noncitizens without adequately supervising line officers’ exercise of enforcement discretion.
