Ronald Sullivan

Following controversy surrounding her role in an online video, Robin Steinberg, a New York public defender whose invitation to a Harvard Law School event was rescinded earlier this year, will deliver the inaugural “Trailblazer” lecture there in April. The “Trailblazer” lecture is hosted by the Criminal Justice Institute, directed by Law School professor Ronald S. Sullivan. Efforts to bring Steinberg to Cambridge began after pushback against the decision to rescind her initial invitation. “We felt that it was only fair that she had the opportunity to speak,” Sullivan said. “Ms. Steinberg has made significant and groundbreaking contributions in the area of criminal law.”

While multiple requests by the defense team of Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, the main suspect in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, to relocate his trial have been denied, some Harvard Law School professors say the defense had legitimate qualms with the trial unfolding in Boston...“If there ever were a case for a change of venue, this is it,” said Nancy Gertner, a faculty member at the Law School and former U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Massachusetts. Law school professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. attributes the defense’s repeated requests to relocate the trial to the far-reaching impact that the bombing and the subsequent manhunt had on the Boston community...According to Harvard Law School professor Alex Whiting, judges deciding whether or not to relocate a trial must weigh a set of “competing interests.”

Following the lack of an indictment in two widely-publicized cases involving police homicides in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, New York City, calls for grand jury reform are growing louder...But Harvard Law School professor Ron Sullivan says that secrecy also prevents the defense from being able to present evidence to the jury, and blocks them from accessing critical information that only the prosecution knows—things that can hinder a fair trial. “My personal view is that claims of secrecy are outdated, and an outmoded way of thinking about the grand jury. More information in criminal cases is more fair,” said Sullivan via a phone interview.

Of the more than 1,300 people called as potential jurors for the trial of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, more than 100 have already been dismissed. The remainder are being individually questioned by lawyers on both sides, giving us a glimpse into how their pasts and possible prejudices could impact this case. WGBH News special correspondent Emily Rooney and Harvard Law School professor Ronald Sullivan Jr. gave insight into the process.

Jury selection is underway in Fall River in the case of Aaron Hernandez, who's charged in the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd...Harvard Law School Professor Ronald Sullivan Jr. says that this pre-trial publicity cannot be avoided, given the recent advancements in information technology. But he says the jurors do not have to be unaware of the case in order to render an impartial verdict. "The juror does not have to be wholly ignorant of... the facts of the case. That's almost impossible. In certain cases, neither side probably wants a juror who's so disconnected from the world that they've heard absolutely nothing about these huge cases. But rather, the question is -- not withstanding that you've heard something about the case -- 'can you nonetheless follow the judge's instructions and render an impartial verdict?'" said Sullivan.

...The Conviction Review Unit has been the most profound reform that Thompson has implemented in his year as district attorney...In January, 2014, Thompson began the process of recruiting Ron Sullivan to assist in designing his new unit...When I asked Sullivan to explain what it means to “do justice”—a phrase several people in the C.R.U. use—he said, “The person who’s the best advocate can prevail with a conviction even if the evidence doesn’t warrant it. Under a justice regime, the notion here is that we’re looking for the correct result, the right result. That’s what prosecutors are duty-bound to do in the first instance.”

"This was a strategic and problematic use of a grand jury to get the result he wanted," said Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., director of the Harvard Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard University. "As a strategic move, it was smart; he got what he wanted without being seen as directly responsible for the result." Sullivan called the case "the most unusual marshaling of a grand jury's resources I've seen in my 25 years as a lawyer and scholar."

Nearly 30 years after David McCallum was convicted of murder at age 17 on the strength of a confession he said was beaten out of him—and no other evidence tied him to the crime—he walked out of a Brooklyn courthouse Wednesday as a free man...In July, Michelen made his presentation to Hale and Harvard Law Professor Ronald Sullivan Jr., who is serving as special counsel in charge of the Conviction Review Unit...During the news conference, Sullivan said studies of cases resulting in DNA exonerations over the past 10 to 15 years showed a "supermajority" of the convictions were based on incorrect eyewitness evidence or confessions."We learned false confessions leave a very distinct footprint. You can look at certain confessions and see signs, proxies that problems may occur. One sure footprint is a false-fed fact."

A letter by Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. Adrian Walker is absolutely right that Boston needs an honest discussion about race and policing in Boston (“Police bias or faulty finding?” Metro, Oct. 10). But he’s wrong to begin that discussion by criticizing the American Civil Liberties Union for disclosing evidence that the Boston Police Department engaged in racially discriminatory policing...While I share Walker’s optimism that current BPD leadership is committed to change, the alarming findings in the report call for real reform, not for shooting the messenger.

After DNA analysis began vindicating long-time claims of innocence from prisoners on death row in the 1990s, it was just a matter of time before the press and the public began taking seriously appeals from inmates sent to jail in cases involving suspicious patterns in police and prosecutorial conduct...The profound power of the judicial system to upend lives and devastate families should never be exercised indiscriminately, says Harvard Law Professor Ronald Sullivan Jr., 48, a former Washington, D.C., public defender who helped revamp New Orleans’ public defense system in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Thompson selected Sullivan in the spring to head up the review panel.

…Fleming’s case is one of many that are now under review at the Brooklyn district attorney’s office since District Attorney Kenneth Thompson took charge last January. Eight have already been exonerated out of scores of potentially wrongful convictions. Under Thompson’s direction, the old Conviction Integrity Unit has expanded to become the Conviction Review Unit. The objective of the new unit is simple: to bring the innocent to justice and restore faith in the legal system…Thompson has brought in Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., a Harvard law professor, as a consultant on the design and operation of the new unit. As both a professor and attorney, Sullivan has real-world experience and a sophisticated eye for the legal process.

As legislators across the country pass anti-heroin bills and health officials hold community summits, prosecutors in more states are pursuing homicide, and similarly serious charges, against those who provided the deadly doses…"It's a growing trend, but still a tactic used in a minority of states around the country," said Ron Sullivan, director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School.

On a rain-drenched night in the summer of 1997, Sherwin Gibbons was shot dead, murdered as he sipped a beer in the vestibule of a building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. It was, law enforcement officials said at the time, a case of mistaken retribution: Someone had stolen a gold chain at a dice game; someone had to pay, and someone did — even if Mr. Gibbons was not the intended target. A suspect, Roger Logan, was arrested, convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the murder. Almost 17 years later, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office took on the task of discovering what really happened in the vestibule, at 373 Chauncey Street, on that July 24...Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., a Harvard Law professor who directs the criminal justice institute there, is a consultant to the district attorney on the design and operations of the unit; a panel of three independent lawyers reviews the unit’s recommendations before Mr. Thompson makes the final decisions.

Amid a statewide surge in heroin use, Wisconsin prosecutors are more frequently pursuing charges against those who provide fatal doses — doubling the number of such homicide charges from 2011 to 2013…Ron Sullivan, director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, said the discrepancy “on its face seems unfair,” but it is not surprising given the power prosecutors have to set policy in their counties.

The Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative of the Brookings Institution, published a memo earlier this month that highlighted the economic costs of crime and incarceration in the United States… Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. is a clinical professor of law and director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School...Sullivan spoke with the Gazette about racial and national sentencing disparities, the economic and social costs of mass incarceration, and the sentencing reforms now under consideration.

After months of scrutiny directed at the University’s policies concerning sexual assault, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith announced Tuesday the creation of an FAS committee charged with bringing Harvard’s largest branch into compliance with a University-wide sexual assault policy still being reviewed by the Federal Office for Civil Rights...The faculty members of the committee include…Law School professor Ronald Sullivan Jr., the master of Winthrop House.