Criminal Law and Procedure

During winter term, students in the Criminal Justice Appellate Clinic work in Washington, D.C. with the MacArthur Justice Center on ongoing cases related to civil rights and the criminal justice system.

Retired federal judge Nancy Gertner asks whether ‘it is fair to use the criminal legal system’ to assess the actor’s responsibility.

The Harvard Law School Library hosted a series of talks on the death penalty in conjunction with the library’s exhibit “Visualizing Capital Punishment: Spectacle, Shame and Sympathy.”

HLS Alexandra Natapoff argues in her revised book that snitching undermines justice and recommends what we should do about it. 

With support from PSVF and Wasserstein fellowships, Mercedes Montagnes ’09, founder of the Promise of Justice Initiative, has tackled injustices in the Louisiana carceral system.

Anna Lvovsky ’13 has been promoted to professor of law at Harvard Law School. A scholar of criminal law and procedure, constitutional law, and evidence, she joined the faculty as an assistant professor in 2017.

In the first of the series, “Cases in Brief,” Harvard Law Professor Dehlia Umunna discusses the infamous “Scottsboro Boys” case, Powell v. Alabama (1932), in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the first time that defendants in capital cases have the right to adequate legal counsel.

Amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Alex Whiting, deputy specialist prosecutor at the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague, outlines the path from investigation to trial, and ultimately to justice.

For the past two years, students in Harvard’s Prison Legal Assistance Project have helped prisoners they say were targeted for retaliatory violence.

HLS Professor Andrew Crespo was one of 59 members elected to the American Law Institute this year. Thirteen Harvard Law School alumni were also elected.

“This administration needs to get out of its own way, … take action where it can, and create pathways for others to take action where it cannot or will not,” says Premal Dharia, executive director of the Institute to End Mass Incarceration.

In a case that could have national implications, the Harvard Law School Crimmigration Clinic recently convinced judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to discredit the use of controversial municipal gang databases in immigration proceedings.

In “Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality,” Harvard Law Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin traces the tactics of the groundbreaking lawyer amid pivotal protests.

Described as one of the great figures in the history of Harvard Law School, Lloyd L. Weinreb ’62, a leading authority on criminal and copyright law, and an HLS professor for nearly a half-century, died Dec. 15, at the age of 85.

A highly principled public official and beloved colleague, Heymann had a distinguished career in academia, and serving in four presidential administrations, including in the solicitor general’s office under President John F. Kennedy, in several U.S. State Department jobs for Lyndon Johnson, as a Watergate prosecutor, as assistant attorney general during the Carter administration, and as deputy attorney general under Bill Clinton.

When asked what he wanted to be remembered by, longtime Harvard Law Professor and former Watergate prosecutor Philip B. Heymann ’60 replied: “Speaking truth to power.” Heymann, a beloved colleague and distinguished public servant, died Nov. 30 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 89.

Retired federal judge Nancy Gertner, now a senior lecturer on law at Harvard Law School, talks about the verdicts in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, how the trial was conducted, and comparisons to the ongoing trial of the men who killed Ahmaud Arbery.

Harvard Law student Michael Chang-Frieden ’23 discusses writing a global watchdog report on Japan’s ability to fight money laundering, terrorist financing, and nuclear proliferation financing.

Professor Intisar Rabb, director of the Program in Islamic Law at Harvard Law School, was appointed as a special adviser on Islamic Law to the new chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

Former legal adviser to the National Security Council during the Bush administration says 20 years after 9/11, he's frustrated there hasn't been more progress toward an international legal framework for dealing with terrorism.