Ronald Sullivan

The Cambridge police have launched an internal investigation into an incident on Friday night in which officers tackled and punched a black Harvard student they were trying to arrest as he stood naked in the median of a busy street. The police, who released a video of the scene on Sunday amid complaints about the officers’ conduct, said that the student, Selorm Ohene, 21, was apparently high on drugs and acting in an aggressive and unruly manner when they approached him and tried to calm him down. He came at them, the police said, with clenched fists...Mr. Ohene is studying mathematics, according to a statement from his lawyers, Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. and Dehlia Umunna, both of whom are professors at Harvard. They said he is still recovering from his injuries, but offered few other details about the arrest on Friday. The lawyers said it had been a trying ordeal for their client and his family, and they asked the public and the media to respect his privacy.

In the wake of the forcible arrest of a black Harvard undergraduate Friday, hundreds of University affiliates came together at multiple events held across campus to talk through the incident and to share their concern and support for one another. Cambridge Police Department officers arrested a Harvard undergraduate Friday night after a physical encounter with law enforcement on charges including indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, and assault. Shortly after the incident, the Harvard Black Law Students Association tweeted out a statement calling the arrest an instance of police brutality...BLSA hosted the meeting to update Harvard affiliates about what happened Friday and to provide students a place to heal and work through the arrest, according to BLSA member Emanuel Powell III [`19]. He specifically credited black women involved with BLSA for their participation in the event, noting the women facilitated conversation and ensured the gathering served as a “space of healing.”...BLSA member Amber A. James ’11 [`19], who spoke at the event, said she agrees with Powell and that she thinks the meeting served a key function in allowing Harvard affiliates to “[build] for the future.”...Several Faculty Deans sent emails to students in their Houses following the arrest Friday. Some announced they plan to hold House events to discuss the details of the incident and to offer students a space to respond and reflect. In an email to Winthrop House residents sent midday Saturday, Winthrop Faculty Deans Stephanie Robinson and Ronald S. Sullivan Jr.—who serves as an advisor to BLSA—wrote they plan to provide students with a place to share their thoughts about the arrest. “Winthrop House will provide a space for students to process the incident itself, as well as the broader issues implicated by this particular incident,” Sullivan and Robinson wrote.

...Eric Greitens lost his requests to dismiss his indictment, hold his trial before a judge without a jury and disqualify a Harvard law professor from working on the team that’s prosecuting him...Greitens, a Republican and a Rhodes scholar, objected to the St. Louis city prosecutor hiring Professor Ronald Sullivan because of a Missouri law that makes it a crime for the same person to simultaneously serve as a prosecutor and a defense lawyer. Sullivan previously represented the family of Michael Brown, the black teenager whose killing by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 set off nationwide protests. The professor currently represents a trader facing a criminal securities fraud trial in Connecticut in April. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner, the lead prosecutor, argued that that the conflict-of-interest law would only apply if the professor was doing defense work in Missouri. State Judge Rex Burlison ruled against Greitens without explanation.

A Harvard Law School professor whose past clients include the family of the 18-year-old fatally shot in 2014 by a policeman in Ferguson, Missouri, has joined the prosecution team in the criminal case against Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Circuit Judge Rex Burlison on Monday approved Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner's motion to have Ronald S. Sullivan join the prosecution. Greitens was indicted in February on felony invasion of privacy. He is accused of taking a compromising photo of a woman with whom he was having an affair without her permission in 2015, before he was elected.

After repeated reports of “vandalism, theft, and destruction of property,” Winthrop House administrators sent multiple emails to House residents condemning the perpetrators and warning of potential consequences...Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. and Stephanie Robinson, Winthrop’s faculty deans, sent a more extensive email to Winthrop residents Monday afternoon, citing other instances of “vandalism” to Standish Hall in addition to those in the third floor bathrooms. According to the email, unidentified perpetrators threw toilet paper out of the hall’s windows to litter the courtyard below and also stole a wetsuit from one of the restrooms.

With Massachusetts lawmakers considering sweeping criminal justice reforms, one legal scholar hopes the state will take decisive action. Harvard Law professor Ron Sullivan says there are key areas that lawmakers need to address — specifically, bail reform so people aren't jailed for financial reasons — and mandatory minimum sentences. Many of the proposed reforms before lawmakers are based on recommendations from a report that state public safety officials tout. That's because it shows Massachusetts has the second lowest incarceration rate in the nation.

...In the ninth episode of The Washington's Post "Constitutional" podcast, we explore the prison's origins and the pivotal court case, Gates v. Collier, in which Haber brought to light the constitutional violations that permeated Parchman Farm. This episode features the voices of Haber; Ron Sullivan, a professor at Harvard Law School and director of the Criminal Justice Institute; and David Oshinsky, author of “Worse Than Slavery” and a professor at New York University.

Two high-powered attorneys who helped win an acquittal for former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez took to Twitter Tuesday to defend Jemele Hill, the embattled ESPN anchor whom the network suspended Monday over some of her tweets. The lawyers, Linda Kenney Baden and Ronald Sullivan Jr., who defended Hernandez during his second murder trial and continue to represent his estate, suggested Tuesday that ESPN might have violated Connecticut state law when it disciplined Hill...Sullivan, a Harvard Law professor, echoed Kenney Baden’s comments in his own postings. He tweeted that Hill “has enforceable rights under state law. Limits to when ESPN can silence valid speech.”

Over the course of four centuries, Harvard has seen presidents of many stripes. They’ve been clergymen and classicists, ambassadors and governors, chemists and botanists, and secretaries of State and the Treasury. Their training and trades may have varied—but to date, all have been white. And, until current University President Drew G. Faust, male...Ten years later, some would like to see Harvard make history yet again. “The school has made wonderful strides with respect to the student population,” Law professor and Winthrop Faculty Dean Ronald Sullivan said. “There’s still work to be done with respect to the faculty, and there’s even more work that needs to be done with respect to the top levels of administrators at the University.”

An op-ed by Ronald Sullivan. There is no greater injustice than an innocent person being convicted of a crime they didn’t commit. And even when a defendant may not be factually innocent, confidence in our criminal a justice system, and fundamental fairness, is undermined when a defendant doesn’t receive a fair trial. In 2012 and 2013, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office came under intense criticism for the number of wrongful convictions that had occurred under the then-District Attorney and his predecessors. Ken Thompson, now sadly deceased, was elected in 2013 on a promise to investigate and overturn wrongful convictions and restore fairness and integrity to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. Soon after Thompson’s election, the current Acting District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, Thompson’s Special Counsel, reached out to me and asked that I design and implement what became Brooklyn’s Conviction Review Unit.

At a time when alternative facts rule the day and the landmark achievements of the Civil Rights Movement, and democracy itself, are on life support, it’s important for those of us in the know and in the struggle to share stories of local victories and “profiles in courage” to fuel our hope for a better tomorrow (particularly as thousands of recent law school graduates sit and prepare for their bar exams)...One such man is Harvard Law Professor and Harvard College Faculty Dean Ronald S. Sullivan Jr.

After an Australian woman was shot dead by police in Minneapolis, experts are questioning why the officers' body cameras were not turned on during the encounter. Justine Ruszczyk, who used the last name Damond, reportedly called 911 after hearing a noise near her home on Saturday, according to her stepson-to-be. She was fatally shot by one of the responding officers..."I think a point that gets lost is that these body cameras also have the benefit of protecting officers who rightly use force, because it has this ability to record a situation and visually show that force is justified," Ronald Sullivan Jr., a professor at Harvard Law School and director of the Harvard Criminal Justice Institute, told NBC News.

A former UMass graduate student will be sentenced Wednesday in the heroin overdose death of another student. Jesse Carrillo was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and distribution after Eric Sinacori died from heroin supplied by Carrillo. Harvard Law Professor Ronald Sullivan said that going after drug dealers for manslaughter has become more common across the country, but he questions the legal approach. "For a manslaughter case, the government has to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the seller acted so recklessly that death was foreseeable," he said.

An op-ed by Ronald Sullivan. Who is Buddy Jacobs, and how does he block criminal justice reform in Florida?...For almost 50 years, Jacobs has served as General Counsel and Lobbyist for the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association – an organization that includes the 20 elected prosecutors for every district in Florida. Jacobs, now in his late 70s, started lobbying on behalf of the FPAA just a few years out of law school. The FPAA sees itself as primarily educational, and its voice is particularly strong in the state capital as it advises the legislature on criminal justice issues. Florida’s prison population increased by more than 1000% and correction spending increased 98% ― 1.1 billion dollars ― between 1994 and 2014. During that time, Jacobs has been a stalwart advocate for retro superpredator-era pro-carceral policies. Indeed, Buddy Jacobs is one of the most powerful forces keeping the state stuck in the past.

An op-ed by Ronald Sullivan. Alabama recently took a small but important step forward in reforming its criminal justice system when the legislature voted to eliminate judicial override in capital cases last month, but all of that progress could come to a screeching halt if the “Fair Justice Act” is allowed to pass. The deceitfully named bill (it is neither fair nor just) would shorten the time for appeals and reduce already inadequate resources that death row prisoners have when appealing their convictions. Alabama has clearly put its head in the sand and is ignoring its own disgraceful experience with wrongful convictions and the death penalty, as well as current recommendations from other states.

Family and high-profile friends of Aaron Hernandez, the convicted killer and former New England Patriots star who hanged himself in his prison cell last week, on Monday paid their final respects to the notorious felon during a private funeral service in his hometown....Hernandez’s attorneys, including Jose Baez, Ronald Sullivan, Linda Kenney Baden, Robert Proctor, Leontire, and Michelle Medina, exited the funeral home around 4 p.m. to read a brief statement on behalf of the family. Sullivan, a Harvard Law professor, read the statement, thanking the public for “its thoughtful expressions of condolences.” “The family wishes to say goodbye to Aaron in privacy,” Sullivan. “They love him and they miss him.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch made a difference Thursday in his first 5-4 vote on the Supreme Court, siding with his fellow conservatives to deny a petition from eight Arkansas inmates who sought to stop back-to-back-to-back executions. Gorsuch’s vote on one of several 11th-hour petitions, in effect, allowed the state of Arkansas to carry out its first execution in nearly 12 years...Harvard law professor Ronald Sullivan filed an amicus brief on Thursday urging the Supreme Court to halt Lee’s execution and go the extra step of ending the “failed experiment” of capital punishment once and for all. In a later statement to The Huffington Post, he deplored the justices’ failure to act in the face of Arkansas’ brazenness. “The Court’s role is to vigorously police overzealous exercises of government power,” Sullivan said.

Aaron J. Hernandez, who had the phrase “God forgives” tattooed onto his arm, marked his forehead with a reference to a biblical passage before apparently taking his own life in his cell at the state’s maximum security prison Wednesday, according to records and a law enforcement official...About seven hours earlier, Hernandez was on the telephone with Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez, his longtime fiancee and the mother of his 4-year-old daughter, according to Ronald Sullivan, one of his lawyers. “She spoke to him until telephone hours were over at about 8[p.m.],” Sullivan wrote in an e-mail Thursday. He did not say what they discussed.

State police are probing the suicide of convicted killer and ex-New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez in a Massachusetts prison this morning, and his legal team is vowing its own investigation. "The family and legal team is shocked and surprised at the news of Aaron’s death," Hernandez's defense lawyer, Jose Baez, who had just won his acquittal on double-murder charges on Friday, said in a statement this morning....Ronald Sullivan, a member of Hernandez's most recent defense team, said a statement would be forthcoming, "but right now, we just don't have enough information to comment."