Do you want lower rates of "crime"? Do you want increased childhood development and well-being? Do you want lower rates of homelessness? Do you want to reduce overdose deaths? Do you want these things cheaper than ever? Then give people housing, food, schooling, medicine, and support, for free.

BREAKING: A new experiment in Philly shows cash rental assistance slashed homelessness rates by 57–67%.

Just wrapped up my first CrimFest! I had a fabulous time and met so many terrific young scholars. Many thanks to @cbhessick.bsky.social and @hashtagblevin.bsky.social for organizing, and Penn Carey Law for hosting!

Just wrapped up my first CrimFest! I had a fabulous time and met so many terrific young scholars. Many thanks to @cbhessick.bsky.social and @hashtagblevin.bsky.social for organizing, and Penn Carey Law for hosting!

I'm a little late in posting this, but my essay on the Supreme Court's Grants Pass decision last term is now officially out in the Washington University Law Review! If you are interested in the criminalization of homelessness, give it a read! wustllawreview.org/2025/06/20/g...

I’ve read an early version of this article and it is very interesting! It makes a great case for systemic mercy for some offenders.

One of the thing that angers me most about unaccountable federal police, including ICE, but also police in general--is every step over the last 30 years to aggrandize their power has been met with warnings that exactly this would happen.

It’s important to pay attention to the fact that there are simultaneous efforts to criminalize mask-wearing by citizens and to standardize the wearing of face-obscuring gaiters by people purporting to be law enforcement.

I’m proud to be one of 775 law professors who signed this amicus brief in support of Susman Godfrey. law.stanford.edu/wp-content/u...

If the U.S. government is going to take the position that, once removed from the United States, folks can’t be brought back, then it sure seems to me that federal courts should be reflexively and categorically barring *all* removals until they’re 100 percent certain that the removals are lawful.

40%-60% of the 775,000 unhoused people in America are employed. We are a nation of the working poor. The working desperate.

What Missouri has done to St. Louis and Kansas City is a disgrace. They are the only two major cities in the U.S. that do not have authority over their own police. The local nature of U.S. policing is a feature; it puts power to control police in the hands of those who bear most of the costs.

Was randomly scrolling this morning and saw a face I recognized. One of my students, Alec Bacon ‘26, has just been named an @acslaw.bsky.social Next Generation Leader. I doubt he’s on this app, but I wanted to share his accomplishment. Congratulations, Alec!! www.acslaw.org/press_releas...

Although we are a little lower than last year, I’m still proud that Arizona State continues to be recognized for the strength of its criminal law program. We have a terrific group of dedicated criminal law scholars that reflect a wide variety of practice experiences and scholarly interests.

Although we are a little lower than last year, I’m still proud that Arizona State continues to be recognized for the strength of its criminal law program. We have a terrific group of dedicated criminal law scholars that reflect a wide variety of practice experiences and scholarly interests.

Thank you so much to the Widener University Commonwealth Law School and the Widener Commonwealth Law Review for inviting me to present my symposium essay “Harm and Wrongdoing in the Law of Rape” today! I had a wonderful time and was so impressed with the engagement of the audience.

On my way to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for a symposium on gender-based violence at the Widener Commonwealth Law Review. Excited to talk with @buchhandler.bsky.social @m2dempsey.bsky.social @racheljwechsler.bsky.social among others!

Happy to see my dean on this list!

Super interesting new blog post by @rickweinmeyer.bsky.social and @benjaminabarsky.bsky.social addressing the carceral turn in matters of public health, including the contemporary homelessness crisis. We need to find an effective solution that reduces harm and improves health. Give it a read!

You know it’s a lawyer when the crying is in tenths of an hour

Death-penalty states should be open about how they kill people; they botch and bungle executions all the time. At least 16 states — including Arizona which will kill a man tomorrow — have laws that allow them to operate in secrecy. Tragic. boltsmag.org/secrecy-as-a...

It is always worth reading Orin Kerr on the Fourth Amendment. But I find this new Essay particularly intriguing—leveraging his preferred interpretation of Jones to potentially preserve Katz in the face of a staunchly conservative Court. Give it a look!

What a fun weekend at the Junior Scholar’s Conference! I met some incredible people (too many to name for fear of leaving someone out), learned about cutting-edge research, and got to visit one of my favorite cities. Also, very happy that Crim was so well represented among the participants.

On my way to the Junior Scholars Conference in Boston! Looking forward to presenting “Consent & Causation,” as well as meeting new colleagues. Thanks to @davidasimon.bsky.social for organizing!

This is correct. Health care is one of the data-driven ways you reduce crime 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

jfc they’re disappearing police misconduct data www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

I think “highly recommended” is an appropriate tag for anything written by @rachelbarkow.bsky.social. But this piece highlighting the Supreme Court’s hypocrisy with respect to when and where blameworthiness matters is especially interesting to me as my thoughts on mens rea evolve. Check it out!

A 1L student who was inspired by our conversation on actus reus just made me this. It’s perfect! I’m so genuinely fortunate to get to do what I do for a living.

The SSRN link should now be working, for those interested: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Very smart new essay by @elizabethjoh.bsky.social that holds police experiments with technological surveillance to the ethical standards demanded of other kinds of experiments on humans.

I’m genuinely so excited to announce that my new article, Consent & Causation, will be published by the Virginia Law Review! I’ll get it up on SSRN soon, but here is the (lengthy) abstract. I always welcome feedback, so please DM or email me if you’d like to read an early draft.

Although it seems weird to be focusing on such small things when it seems like the world is on fire, law review publication announcements are one of my favorite parts of social media. Congratulations to Greer, and to everyone who successfully places an article this cycle!!

So grateful to have been invited to this panel by the ABA Section of State and Local Government Law on police consent decrees! It was a great conversation. www.americanbar.org/news/abanews...

I just shared this article with one of my students who wanted more detail about the ways in which social services—and education in particular—may be an alternative to policing. (I’m not sure why students are always so skeptical of that claim.) Fantastic resource!

I’m not emotionally prepared for another law review submission cycle.

I’m on team obsessively check the room number and start time for days in advance only to get distracted and run into the classroom at the last second.

My new article, "A Constitutional Right to Exclude Evidence," has been published in the Texas A&M Law Review: scholarship.law.tamu.edu/lawreview/vo...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. saw an 18.1% increase in homelessness this year, with more than 770,000 people counted as homeless.

I have a new piece out @newrepublic.com, a reply to Ezra Klein's recent "ignore fact-finders, respond to the anger" take on Pod Save America. On the one hand, I agree 100%: politics are vibes, and can't fact-check vibes. On The Other Hand Those (incorrect) vibes COME FROM SOMEWHERE: the media.

I agree with the Judge who wrote this, but in all seriousness I know lawyers who make like $4 million a year mostly writing tendentious emails mischaracterizing meet and confers.

Law professors, help me out: Is there an implied expectation that students should reference course concepts and material in answering an exam question? Or is this my fault for not explicitly informing students that the goal of the exam is to demonstrate mastery of the material I actually taught?

Post a movie about politics that you suspect no one remembers.

This remains one of wildest stories we put out in 2024. Chicago police is required to report all police stops to oversight authorities, & local officials have touted a decrease. But our investigation found they're failing to report a ton of spots. How many exactly...? 200,000 stops just in 2023.

In my upcoming book, I show that, beginning in the 1980s, framing homelessness as a problem of mental illness and addiction was politically engineered to obscure the socioeconomic roots of the crisis and to justify the removal of homeless people from public space. bsky.app/profile/bria...

This is my stance, too. Invite me, feed me, make sure I don’t go broke, and I’m happy to present—in person—at whatever you have going on!

Another interesting contribution by Paul Robinson on the topic of empirical dessert. This paper would be perfect for a seminar in criminal law theory.

Louisville enters into consent decree with the Justice Department after investigation prompted by the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor and police treatment of protesters: www.kcra.com/article/loui...

“Luck” is not the right word, but I could have never afforded to take my fellowship if my wonderful grandmother (who had been a big supporter of my career goals) had not passed away and left me a bit of money in her will. It wasn’t much, but it is fair to describe it as “life-changing.”

Just got this: Your paper, "VISIBLE LEARNING: ADAPTING PRIMARY AND SECONDARY PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES TO LEGAL EDUCATION", was listed on SSRN's Top Downloads list today for: Innovation in Legal Education eJournal. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... Thx for the advice to post! @benmcjunkin.bsky.social‬

For those interested in The Plaintiff Police, a new draft is up, and comments still very welcome!