Events
Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights
Date: April 4, 2023
Time: 6:00 PM
Valena Beety became a prosecutor to protect victims of violent crime. But she quickly learned that poor prosecutions could do more harm than good. Dismayed by forensic fraud, false evidence, and police and prosecutor misconduct, Beety joined the innocence movement.
Manifesting Justice recounts the shocking story of Beety's client Leigh Stubbs. Stubbs—a young, queer woman from Mississippi—was wrongly convicted of a horrific crime simply because of her sexual orientation. Drawing on Stubb’s story, Beety describes how coerced confessions, false identifications, racism, and other prejudices contribute to wrongful convictions. Along the way, Beety challenges our definitions of innocence and advocates for criminal legal reform.
Professor Beety is an innocence litigator, activist, and founder of the West Virginia Innocence Project. She is Professor of Law and Deputy Director of the Academy of Justice at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.
Manifesting Justice recounts the shocking story of Beety's client Leigh Stubbs. Stubbs—a young, queer woman from Mississippi—was wrongly convicted of a horrific crime simply because of her sexual orientation. Drawing on Stubb’s story, Beety describes how coerced confessions, false identifications, racism, and other prejudices contribute to wrongful convictions. Along the way, Beety challenges our definitions of innocence and advocates for criminal legal reform.
Professor Beety is an innocence litigator, activist, and founder of the West Virginia Innocence Project. She is Professor of Law and Deputy Director of the Academy of Justice at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.
Implementing Public Defense Workload Standards
Past Events
The Myth of Individualized Prosecutorial Enforcement
Date: March 8, 2023
Although prosecutors wield immense discretionary power to determine how the justice system will respond to allegations of criminal activity, they have traditionally not faced meaningful scrutiny or accountability for how they exercise their discretion. Yet over the past several years, prosecutors and the roles they play in charging have become enmeshed in political controversy. Voters have elected dozens of prosecutors running on reformist platforms. And conventional prosecutors, of course, are fighting back.
Professor Murray calls one key idea in these debates the myth of individualized enforcement. That’s the idea that enforcement decisions have traditionally hinged on case-specific factors relating to the offense and the offender rather than categorical policies or criteria and, thus, are essentially apolitical. Professor Murray argues that this widely disseminated idea is mistaken.
Professor Murray calls one key idea in these debates the myth of individualized enforcement. That’s the idea that enforcement decisions have traditionally hinged on case-specific factors relating to the offense and the offender rather than categorical policies or criteria and, thus, are essentially apolitical. Professor Murray argues that this widely disseminated idea is mistaken.
Weeding out Racial Disparity: Dallas DA Declination Policies
Date: February 9, 2023
In 2019, District Attorney John Creuzot vowed to end the rampant racial disparity in marijuana enforcement. As a result, the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office (Dallas DAO) issued policies designed to radically decrease police enforcement of misdemeanor marijuana possession laws. The authors review pre- and post-reform data about the number of marijuana misdemeanor cases that police submitted to the Dallas DAO for prosecution.
The authors conclude that the Dallas DAO’s policies were associated with a significant decrease in the number of marijuana misdemeanors referred by local police. However, those policies were not associated with a similar reduction in the degree of racial disparity among the cases submitted. Indeed, racial disparity in marijuana enforcement actually increased in some places.
Drawing on other research about prosecutorial charging discretion, the authors situate their findings in the context of other progressive prosecution initiatives and offer insights about the conditions necessary for success.
Compromising the Social Contract
Date: January 25, 2023
Professor Sean Hill is an Assistant Professor of Law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.
Professor Hill’s teaching and research lie at the intersection of critical race theory and criminal justice policy. His forthcoming publication in the UCLA Law Review specifically examines bail reform and pretrial risk assessment instruments through a critical race lens. Prior to joining OSU Moritz College of Law, Professor Hill was a Law Research Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center, where he led a seminar on the racial implications of algorithmic risk assessment.
Unwarranted Warrants: An Empirical Analysis of the Search and Seizure Process
Date: November 3, 2022
The Criminal Justice Reform Workshop "Unwarranted Warrants: An Empirical Analysis of the Search and Seizure Process" was hosted by the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center on November 3, 2022. The workshop was presented by Prof. Miguel de Figueiredo, Prof. Dane Thorley, and Prof. Brett Hashimoto.
Barred: Why the Innocent Can't Get Out of Prison
Date: October 25, 2022
"Barred: Why the Innocent Can't Get Out of Prison" was hosted by the Deason Criminal Justice Center and the SMU Dedman School of Law Office of Diversity and Inclusion on October 25, 2022, as a part of the "Doing the Work" series.
Diversifying the Pipeline in STAR (Small, Tribal, and Rural) Criminal Legal Deserts
Date: September 29, 2022
Our panel discusses strategies for recruiting diverse criminal legal practitioners to work in rural—and minoritized rural—criminal legal systems.
Special Policy & Advocacy Event: Solving the Initial Appearance Crisis
Date: September 15, 2022
Across the country, people are arrested and held behind bars for days, weeks — and sometimes months — before their initial appearance in court. These delays increase pretrial detention and postpone the appointment of counsel.
Our panel of experts review the Deason Center's pathbreaking initial appearance report cards and discuss the Center's campaign to solve the initial appearance crisis.
Our panel of experts review the Deason Center's pathbreaking initial appearance report cards and discuss the Center's campaign to solve the initial appearance crisis.
Breaking the Backbone of Unlimited Power
Date: September 8, 2022
Professor Zamir Ben-Dan, presents a follow-up to his article, Breaking the Backbone of Unlimited Power: The Case for Abolishing Absolute Immunity for Prosecutors in Civil Rights Lawsuits.
Professor Ben-Dan discusses whether prosecutors should have either qualified immunity or personal liability for prosecutorial misconduct. He will also suggest relevant standards of proof.
Registrants will be provided with a copy of the paper.
Professor Zamir Ben-Dan is an Assistant Professor at the Temple University Beasley School of Law.
Zamir Ben-Dan joined the Temple Law faculty in the Fall of 2022. His research interests and emerging scholarship lie in the intersections of criminal law, race and the law, and American history.
Post-Pandemic Realities in STAR Jails
Date: July 21, 2022
Though bail reform advocates have long pressed for policies to help reduce lengthy pre-trial detentions, it was, arguably, responses to the COVID-19 pandemic that finally moved the needle on jail reform policies.
With local jails becoming virus transmission hotspots, jail administrators and sheriffs across the nation had to make real-time decisions to limit pre-trial detention rates and reduce jail populations to curb transmission. Many employed innovative reforms to address public health and safety concerns among pre-trial detainees and people in their communities.
Our expert panel will discuss jail administration policies and reforms implemented during the pandemic and the implications of maintaining these reforms in a post-pandemic future.
Unexceptional Protest
Date: July 14, 2022
Anti-protest legislation is billed as applying only in the extreme circumstances of large-scale civil disobedience. But these laws have alarming consequences that extend beyond mass protests.
While existing critiques of anti-protest laws emphasize the chilling effects on protestor speech, those analyses mask the threat of these laws outside of mass protests. In fact, anti-protest laws have an impact on every day public order and the criminal regulation of Black, Latinx, and other targeted communities.
Prof. Amber A. Baylor’s article examines the construction of mass protest law exceptionalism and advocates for better understanding the burdens and consequences borne by already vulnerable communities.
Conflicts of Interest and Judicial Ethics in Rural Criminal Law
Date: April 28, 2022
The Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center presents our STAR (Small, Tribal, and Rural) Justice Series.
Professor Pamela Metzger leads a panel discussion of the judicial conflicts of interests that arise for judges presiding over criminal cases in small towns and rural areas. Panelists will identify issues that arise for judges and practitioners in criminal proceedings in STAR communities and explore approaches to addressing them.
The Appearance of Unfairness: Litigating Race in Criminal Trials
Date: March 10, 2022
Following the national reckoning and subsequent backlash concerning racial equity, and in the wake of the highly publicized Rittenhouse and McMichaels' trials, please join us and Attorney Johanna Jennings as she discusses the legal issues and implications for future legal proceedings arising out of the racialized rhetoric utilized in both trials and others like them.
Johanna Jennings is the Founder and Executive Director of The Decarceration Project, a nonprofit dedicated to mitigating the decades-long trend of inequitable and inhumane mass incarceration. In that role, she engages in projects to alleviate systemic racial inequity, represents individuals directly in strategic litigation, and advocates for policies to reduce mass incarceration.
Pretrial Justice in Out-of-the-way Places
Date: March 03, 2022
Professor Jordan Gross and Dr. Laura Kirsch supervise the Rural Justice Initiative (RJI) at the University of Montana. In Fall 2021, in collaboration with the Montana Court Administrator’s Office, RJI surveyed Montana judges about their bail and pretrial decision-making practices and procedures. Follow-up interviews will explore the unique challenges and opportunities that rural communities face in the administration of pretrial justice and the implementation of bail reform initiatives.
Access to Justice for People of Color in STAR Spaces
Date: February 24, 2022
Professor Maybell Romero leads a panel discussion about the experiences of Black, Native, Latinx, Asian, and other people of color in small, tribal, and rural (STAR) criminal legal systmes. Panelists address the issues that confront justice-involved people in rural and small-town communities of color.