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Midyear Meeting | | Program Speakers | Housing Joseph Singer Speech |
Conference on Criminal Justice
Sunday, June 9 - Wednesday, June 12, 2013
San Diego, California

Why Attend? Many of the controversies in criminal justice are longstanding: the proper use of the criminal sanction, the dilemmas of regulating law enforcement in a democratic society, the purposes and justifications of punishment. Other controversies, at least on the surface, seem more recent: for example, the growing interplay between criminal law and family law as reflected by criminal law’s increasing presence in the home; or the use of technology as a tool of law enforcement to apprehend criminals, to monitor us all, and quite possibly to make determinations of guilt and innocence. Still yet are other controversies receiving growing attention: when do law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges have too much, or too little, discretion, and is there a way to regulate some decision-making? How can we reform sentencing and punishment to make it more fair and just? How can we benefit from increased dialogue with practitioners? Indeed, what is our role as criminal law and procedure scholars in improving the criminal justice system? Perhaps equally important, what is our role as teachers in improving the criminal justice system?

This multi-day Conference will assemble respected scholars, experts, clinicians, and practitioners to explore these and other issues, and to reflect upon recent criminal justice developments in our quickly changing world. For example, one panel will focus on how changes in technology have prompted questions about the meaning of various criminal procedure protections, and the justness and accuracy of guilt and sentencing determinations. Another panel will explore recent developments in sentencing law, proposed changes to the Model Penal Code’s sentencing section, how sentencing holds up to empirical scrutiny, and sentencing’s connection to mass incarceration. All of the scheduled panels share similar goals: to explore both where we’ve been, and where we may be going; to incorporate the insights of other disciplines; and to consider the intersections that exist among us and how those intersections can inform the work ahead. Each panel will be followed by break-out sessions during which attendees can explore in small groups the topics raised by the panels, and discuss how those topics can be incorporated into our scholarship and our teaching. Because so much of what we do relates to scholarship and the exchanging of ideas, this multi-day Conference will also include several Works-in-Progress sessions for scholars to present draft papers and receive feedback. These draft papers will be selected from a call for abstracts, and hopefully will prove a great opportunity for junior and senior scholars alike. In addition, one day of the Conference will have, as an added focus, criminal law and procedure panels that are particularly pertinent to practitioners, and to encouraging more dialogue between scholars, teachers, and practitioners. And of course, the Conference will include a reception and informal social events to give attendees time to catch up with old friends and make new ones. Please join us!

Where: Westin Gaslamp Quarter, San Diego, California.
The hotel is located in the historic and vibrant Gaslamp Quarter, featuring shopping, restaurants, and entertainment.

Hotel Room Rate: $199 single or double occupancy, plus 12.5% nightly sales tax and $.20 per night. The cutoff date for making a room reservation is May 15, 2013.

Topics Include:
Culpability and White Collar Crime; The Competitive Advantage of Grounded Scholarship: Finding New Opportunities and New Reasons to Bridge the Gap between Academics and Practitioners; A Debate - Electronic Surveillance; Fresh Ideas for Intractable Problems in Criminal Law The End of Criminal Justice as We Know It?: The Impact of Science on Criminal Law and Procedure; Discretion as the Exercise of Prudence or an Abuse of Power?: Evaluating and Regulating the Judgments of Police and Prosecutors; A Man’s Castle?: The State, Crime, and the Home; Mass Incarceration, Criminal Sentencing, and the Politics of Crime and Punishment.

Confirmed Speakers: Douglas A. Berman (Ohio State); Josh Bowers (Virginia); Mary Pat Brown (O’Melveny & Myers); Paul Butler (Georgetown); Gabriel “Jack” Chin (California, Davis); James E. Coleman (Duke); Joshua Dressler (Ohio State); Mary D. Fan (University of Washington); Nita Farahany (Duke); James Forman, Jr. (Yale); Richard S. Frase (Minnesota); Michael J. Garcia (Kirkland & Ellis); Orin S. Kerr (George Washington); Lauren Sudeall Lucas (Georgia State); Pamela R. Metzger (Tulane); Erin Murphy (New York University); Melissa E. Murray (California, Berkeley); Alexandra Natapoff (Loyola Law School); Victoria Nourse (Wisconsin); John F. Pfaff (Fordham); Ellen S. Podgor (Stetson); L. Song Richardson (Iowa); Daniel C. Richman (Columbia); Alice G. Ristroph (Seton Hall); John Savarese (Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Carol Steiker (Harvard); Jeannie Suk (Harvard); Susan F. Turner (School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine)