He was kind and caring, brilliant and brave, an intellectual giant and a humble servant, and he was a central part of the Harvard Law School community, blending his deep religious faith with his legal work, setting an example for how to live an authentic life, and inspiring those he met.
In honor of William J. Stuntz, an authority on criminal law and criminal procedure who also wrote widely on Christianity and the law, Harvard Law School’s Program on Biblical Law & Christian Legal Studies featured an afternoon and evening of discussions on April 2 that culminated in a dinner and fireside chat featuring a number of distinguished speakers. The event was sponsored by the William J. Stuntz Legacy Project, an initiative of the program developed by Faculty Director Professor Ruth L. Okediji, the Jeremiah Smith, Jr., Professor of Law and a steering committee chaired with Judge Thomas Griffith, and included close friends, colleagues, and admirers of Professor Stuntz.
In his opening remarks, Interim Harvard Law School Dean John Goldberg called Stuntz, who died in 2011, “brilliant, infinitely patient, energetic, even in very difficult times,” and someone who loved being a contrarian and helping his students and colleagues at every opportunity.
Goldberg recalled how he experienced that help firsthand years ago when he opted to teach criminal law. “Bill was unbelievable. He was so patient with me and taught me so much,” said Goldberg, adding, “It’s one of the blessings of my life that I even had a brief time to get to know Bill.”
Thomas B. Griffith, former judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and a Harvard lecturer on law, moderated the evening discussion. He said Stuntz was the perfect role model for young scholars struggling with how to blend their faith, or any other passion, with the study and practice of the law. He proved, in a secular age, you could be at the “finest law school in the land, and that you can succeed by being your true self, your authentic self,” said Griffith, adding that “we want people to be inspired by his example.”
One of those inspired by Stuntz was U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice and former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan ’86. Early in her deanship, Kagan tapped Stuntz’s great mind and manner, naming him to an informal circle of advisers she met with weekly. She also asked him to take charge of building the school’s intellectual community. That proved a perfect fit.
“He did it just naturally. It’s just what he liked, talking to people. He loved ideas. He thought that he could learn from pretty much anybody, whether it was a student or a colleague,” said Kagan. “And he thought we all get smarter if we think about things together.”
Stuntz’s “eclectic set of ideas,” added Kagan, also made for interesting discussions.
“Sometimes he agreed with you and sometimes he thought that you were saying the most ridiculous thing in the world, and you could never really tell which side you were going to wind up on. But that’s part of what I loved about him,” said Kagan, “and the way he participated in the intellectual conversation at the Law School.”
Martha Minow, Harvard’s 300th Anniversary University Professor, who was also one of Kagan’s advisers at the time, recalled how Stuntz often said the “smartest thing in the room” during their weekly meetings. “No matter what the kind of scholarship was,” said Minow, “he was like an X-ray. He would go all the way through it, see it all.”
Among the many who lauded Stuntz as a great mentor willing to offer his praise and honest analysis to anyone, especially students, was Stephanos Bibas, a judge for the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Bibas was a young criminal procedure scholar just entering the field when he met Stuntz at Yale University. “He instantly made the time for me,” said Bibas, who recalled sitting down with Stuntz to solicit feedback on an article he’d written on a topic familiar to both, and his surprise when Stuntz told him, “You’re right. I overclaimed in my earlier article, and you revised my view importantly.”
In discussing Stuntz’s contributions to criminal law, Bibas noted how Stuntz approached the scholarship with both a fresh perspective and pragmatic eye. He realized that broadening criminal liability could bring political benefits to legislatures and greater powers to prosecutors, without imputing “any malice or bad faith or ill will” toward them, said Bibas, because he understood that was “just the way that incentives” worked. “It was a completely different way of looking at criminal law,” Bibas added, “and my work is deeply indebted to his.”
Stuntz also left a lasting mark on Andrew Oldham ’05, a judge for the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Oldham recalled how Stuntz “opened his home” to him during admitted students’ weekend, and later taught him much when they worked together while Oldham pursued his Harvard J.D. “He had forgotten by that point more about the law than I will ever know in my career,” said Oldham, “and I was still trying to help him with every fiber of my being. And he loved me. He mentored me. He’s the reason that I’m such a proud Harvard Law School graduate.”
Addressing his lasting legacy, Minow first turned back the clock, describing the Harvard Law School’s campus in 2000, when Stuntz arrived, as “a very secular place,” where people with religious views “didn’t bring them to anything public.” Stuntz, who was a proud Christian, made an immediate impact. “It was very clear from the minute he walked on the campus that he meant something to a whole group of students who didn’t have anyone to talk to,” said Minow. To have “somebody who everybody admired, somebody who brought people together, that was extraordinary,” she added. “I think that this is a place now where more people feel they can be their full selves.”
As his health declined, Stuntz, who was in constant pain, began using a cane, and then a wheelchair. Although Oldham occasionally saw flashes of Stuntz’s anger and frustration during those difficult days, he remembers most the long conversations they had about “joy and peace and kindness and grace … he went through all of that, and he came out of it as an inspiration to people around him.”
With his writing, Stuntz embraced a “different timbre and register,” and a deep humility when assessing intractable problems and possible solutions, infusing his words with compassion, said Bibas. “There’s a consistent concern for the victims of discrimination or whatever else. That kind of a human concern for the least of the people in a system who often just get castigated.”
Minow agreed. “He’s compassionate for all of the players because he’s not taking sides,” she said, adding “that also was how he was with people.”
Unsurprisingly, Bibas pointed to Stuntz’s deep faith as the source of his profound concern for and kindness toward others. “He saw everybody was made in the image and likeness of God — everyone is of this precious inestimable worth. And when someone approaches you in that spirit, it calls on you to respond, to reciprocate, not to get your defenses up. … You met Bill, and you knew that he cared about you.”
Want to stay up to date with Harvard Law Today? Sign up for our weekly newsletter.