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Social Justice Workshop
Spring 2012 Social Justice Workshop: The Death Penalty: Race, Poverty, and Disadvantage - led by Professor Ellen Kreitzberg
This course will cover the history of the death penalty and its implementation today. We will examine how issues of poverty and race impact capital cases. We will also look at the litigation surrounding the use of lethal injection as a method of execution. Topics will include the right to counsel for people who cannot afford lawyers, racial discrimination, prosecutorial discretion, judicial independence, and mental health issues.
Events begin at noon in Bannan 127.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Anthony Ricco, Law Office of Anthony L. Ricco
“The Practice of Law: Saving Lives and Fighting Injustice”
[This event is the Spring Visiting Practitioner Talk]
Anthony L. Ricco specializes in state and federal criminal defense litigation and especially capital cases. In 2008, he was named Attorney of the Year by the Metropolitan Black Bar Association and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the American Inns of Court awarded him its Professionalism Award. In October 2009, he was appointed as a national resource counsel to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project to provide guidance to capital lawyers around the country. In 2010, he was accepted as a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers. He has handled numerous high-profile and controversial cases, including, inter alia, the World Trade Center bombing conspiracy case; the U.S. Embassy Bombing case; and counsel for Detective Gescard Isnora in the so?called Sean Bell case.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Steven B. Bright, Southern Center for Human Rights
“Race, Poverty, Innocence and Death; Injustice In America”
Stephen B. Bright is president and senior counsel of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School. He has also been a legal services attorney and public defender. Subjects of his litigation, teaching, and writings include legal representation of poor people accused of crimes, capital punishment, racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, conditions and practices in prisons and jails, and judicial independence. He argued Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U.S. 472 (2008), and Amadeo v. Zant, 486 U.S. 214 (1988), both reversed because of racial discrimination in jury selection. He received the American Bar Association’s Thurgood Marshall Award in 1998.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
William “Billy” Neal Moore
“Guilty, But Illegally Convicted; the Foolishness of the Death Penalty”
William “Billy” Neal Moore was on Georgia’s death row for 16.5 years for the crime of murder and armed robbery. On November 8, 1991, Billy was released on parole. His life was spared when he was within seven hours of execution in large part based upon the support of the victim’s family. While on death row Billy earned a bachelor’s degree in theology and ministered to his fellow inmates. Billy is the author of the book I Shall Not Die, But Live, a gripping account of coming within hours of execution.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Angela J. Davis (American University Washington College of Law)
“Prosecutorial Discretion: The Power to Choose Death”
Angela J. Davis is a professor of law at the American University Washington College of Law, where she teaches in the area of criminal law. She is the author of numerous books and articles on racism in the criminal justice arena, prosecutorial discretion and criminal justice, including Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor (Oxford University Press, 2007), and co-editor of Trial Stories (with Professor Michael E. Tigar, Foundation Press, 2007). In 2002, Davis received the American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching, and in 2009 the American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Scholarship. She was awarded a Soros Senior Justice Fellowship in 2004.
Davis is a graduate of Howard University and Harvard Law School. She serves on the board of trustees of the Southern Center for Human Rights, the Sentencing Project, and the Peter M. Cicchino Social Justice Foundation. From 1991 to 1994, she was the director of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. Davis is a former law clerk of the Honorable Theodore R. Newman of the D.C. Court of Appeals.
Previous Social Justice Workshops
Spring and Fall 2011 Social Justice Workshop Archives
Fall 2010 Social Justice Workshop Flyer (PDF)
Spring 2010 Social Justice Workshop Flyer (PDF)
Fall 2009 Social Justice Workshop Flyer (PDF)
Fall 2008 Social Justice Workshop Flyer (PDF)
Fall 2007 Social Justice Workshop (Law and Labor in the Global Economy) Flyer (PDF)
Fall 2006 Social Justice Workshop (Race, Economics, and Education) Flyer (PDF)
Fall 2005 Social Justice Workshop (Health Policy and the Law) Flyer (PDF)
Fall 2004 Social Justice Workshop (Transitional Justice) Flyer (PDF)
