Criminal Law and Procedure

“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.

A counterterrorism czar in the Bush administration, and the first-ever assistant secretary of the Treasury for terrorist financing and financial crimes, says the U.S. needs to reconceptualize what power means in the 21st century.

Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, a former California congresswoman and ranking member of House Intelligence Committee reflects on events of that day and the calamities we still confront.

On the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Harvard Law Today asked five Harvard Law School alumni and a former adjunct professor, all of whom had prominent roles in counterterrorism and other national policies during and after 9/11, to share their reflections about the events of that day.

The former head of Homeland Security and co-author of the USA Patriot Act says the U.S. needs a strategy for dislodging terrorist groups.

A co-author of the 9/11 Commission report, who served on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, says engaged citizenry united in its efforts will make this country safer.

Each year, half of HLS’ first-year J.D. students and around a quarter of LL.M. students participate in at least one of HLS' 11 Student Practice Organizations, with some involved in multiple organizations at once.

This academic year, 14 Wasserstein Public Interest Fellows have been named at Harvard Law School.

“Anna Lvovsky chronicles the policing of gay life in the mid-20th century.

Merrick Garland ’77 made the unusual choice to leave a lifetime appointment on the nation’s second most influential court to instead lead a federal agency with roughly 115,000 employees. Unusual, but not surprising, say those who know him well.

Andrew Manuel Crespo ’08 and Premal Dharia, leaders of the ambitious new Institute to End Mass Incarceration, take aim at ‘one of the defining civil rights issues of our time.’