Criminal Justice Institute

Dehlia Umunna has been appointed Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She has been a lecturer at HLS since 2007, and is Deputy Director and Clinical Instructor at HLS’s Criminal Justice Institute (CJI).

On March 6, Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice hosted Dying While Black and Brown, a dance performance focused on capital punishment and the disproportionate numbers of incarcerated people of color. The performance was first commissioned by the San Francisco Equal Justice Society as part of the society’s campaign to restore 14th Amendment protections for victims of discrimination, including those on death row.

And discussions have continued into the new year about the policy and procedures of police, prosecutors and the community at large.

Anita Hill, along with her former legal adviser, Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, and Nan Stein, senior research scientist at Wellesley’s Centers for Women, came together at Harvard Law's Wasserstein Hall to view a screening of the 2013 documentary “Anita,” and to talk about what has changed since she started a national conversation about sexual harassment in 1991.

Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., clinical professor of law and director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, recently spoke with the Harvard Gazette about racial and national sentencing disparities, the economic and social costs of mass incarceration, and the sentencing reforms now under consideration.

In March, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick ’82 nominated Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Institute clinical instructor Gloria Tan to a seat on the Massachusetts Juvenile Court. Tan came to CJI, which supervises third-year law students representing indigent criminal defendants in local district and juvenile courts, after serving as a public defender for the Committee for Public Counsel Services in Boston. When a spot opened up on CPCS's Youth Advocacy Project, Tan switched to working on juvenile cases and has spent her career doing so ever since. Tan was sworn in on May 3rd.

Gov. Deval Patrick ’82 has nominated Gloria Tan, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Institute, to a seat on the Massachusetts Juvenile Court. Tan is a leading national authority in the field of juvenile justice.

Students from Harvard Law School took second place in the 22nd Annual National Criminal Justice Trial Advocacy Competition, held March 29-31, in Chicago.

Last month, Andrew Childers ’11 received a 2011 Law Student Ethics Award from the Association of Corporate Counsel—Northeast Chapter. Childers and 10 other students from area law schools were lauded for upholding the highest ethical standards of the legal profession as student lawyers.

Harvard Law School became the first-ever repeat-winner of the National Puerto Rico Trial Advocacy Competition. Returning as defending champions, the Harvard Law School Trial Team advanced to the semi-finals with the highest score and remained undefeated throughout the competition, edging out Georgetown Law in the final round to win first place.

A team of Harvard Law students won first place at the 4th National Puerto Rico Trial Advocacy Competition in San Juan. The prestigious “invitation only” competition was sponsored by the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico School of Law and was held at the Old San Juan District Courthouse Oct. 31-Nov. 1.

On June 3, as her classmates celebrated Class Day and prepared for graduation ceremonies, Kristina Matic ’09 stood in Roxbury District Court cross-examining a police officer who claimed her client had driven recklessly on his motorcycle and resisted arrest.