Professor Richard Delgado has been selected as a faculty fellow for the Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study for the 2015-2016 academic year. Each faculty fellow will partner with one or more of the departments offering graduate degrees housed in Texas A&M’s 16 colleges or schools, or the Texas A&M Health Science Center. Delgado, the…
Professor John Gross recently wrote in a guest op-ed for Al.com that police and prosecutors are constantly urging legislatures to give them “overly broad” and “unnecessarily punitive” laws to help fight crime. The result is 94 percent of criminal convictions are the result of guilty pleas. “Plea bargaining, something that occurs largely without judicial supervision,…
Professor John Gross recently told ProPublica there is a disparity in the way prosecutors in Alabama’s 67 counties have applied the “chemical endangerment of a child” statute. “Each county is its own little fiefdom,” said Gross, director of the Law School’s criminal defense clinic. “You get vastly different results in terms of how the cases are…
The University of Alabama School of Law will host Distinguished Visiting Lecturer Kenneth Feinberg at noon Tuesday, Sept. 29, in the Bedsole Moot Courtroom 140. The lecture is free and open to the public. Feinberg is an expert in mediation and alternative dispute resolution. He has handled financial claims for major crises and disasters. He…
Legal scholars will visit The University of Alabama School of Law and discuss law’s rhetorical life Sept. 18 during a symposium. The Rhetorical Process and Legal Judgments Symposium begins at 8:30 a.m. in the Bedsole Moot Courtroom, Room 140. Legal scholars will investigate how questions of rhetoric shape the development of legal and judicial decisions,…
Students, academics, and commentators are all paying more attention to the debt load with which law graduates enter the workforce. Many recent articles have detailed the negative impact that large law school debt has on career choices. According to one recent examination, Alabama Law graduates fare well in this metric. The University of Alabama School…
Motions filed Monday by state media outlets to unseal Gov. Robert Bentley’s divorce proceedings argue the case file should be open to the public because most of the state’s divorce cases are open. Professor Steven Hobbs recently told the The Decatur Daily the best argument to unseal the Bentley files may be because it involves the highest elected…
Federal prosecutors plan to retry the Alabama police officer who was charged with violating an Indian man’s civil rights after a jury deadlocked Friday and a mistrial was declared in the case. Madison police officer Eric Parker was accused of using unreasonable force when he slammed Sureshbhai Patel, 58, to the ground in February. Professor…
Professor Ronald Krotoszynski Jr. recently told The New York Times and “Background Briefing with Ian Masters” same-sex couples in Kentucky who have been denied marriage licenses will ultimately receive them. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to allow a county clerk in Kentucky who objects to same-sex marriage on religious grounds to continue to deny…
Professor James Bryce recently told taxnotes.com that Alabama may join other states where tax issues have delayed budgets. Gov. Robert Bentley has proposed tax increases to help close the state’s $700 million budget gap, but the legislature has passed — and Bentley has vetoed — budgets that rely on spending cuts. Alabama’s fiscal year begins…