Events

November 19, 2024 — An expert virtual roundtable discussion exploring new areas for problem solving from public health, crime control, economics, law, justice, politics and the media. Panelists included Panelists will include: Kami Chavis, JD (William & Mary Law School Center for Criminal Justice Policy and Reform), Philip Cook, PhD (Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy), Josh Horwitz, JD (Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions), Mark Rosenberg, MD (Assistant Surgeon General, USPHS, ret), Sheryl Gay Stolberg (The New York Times). Moderated by Jeff Swanson, PhD, Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law, Duke University. Sponsored by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice, the Duke Center for Firearms Law, and Duke Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

October 10, 2024 — A discussion of the wide-ranging impacts of the criminal legal system on individuals and communities. Members of our Duke Law community involved in criminal defense were in conversation with artist Sherrill Roland, in conjunction with the exhibition, Processing Systems: Numbers by Sherrill Roland on display at the Nasher Museum of Art. Panelists included Sherill Roland (Artist and Assistant Professor of Sculpture, Department of Art and Art History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), James E. Coleman, Jr. (John S. Bradway Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law and Director of the Wrongful Conviction Clinic and Center for Criminal Justice and Professional Responsibility), Elana Fogel (Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic), Max Tinter (Duke Law ’26 and Research Assistant with the Wilson Center for Science and Justice and member of the Duke Decarceration Project). Cosponsored by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law, Duke Law Alumni and Development Office, Duke Law Triangle, the FHI Social Practice Lab, the Duke Artistic Research Initiative supported by Mellon Foundation, and the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies Visiting Artists Series.

September 30, 2024 — This panel discussion focused on community-based solutions to gun violence, including those based in violence intervention, diversion programs, and restorative justice. Panelists included speakers Dana Bazelon, Senior Manager, Quattrone Center at Penn Carey Law School; Krystal Harris, Director of Community Intervention & Support Services, Durham County; and Marcia Owen, Co-Director of Prescriptions for Repair and Co-Chair of the Durham City and County Taskforce on Community Safety. The event is sponsored by the Duke Center for Firearms Law and the Wilson Center for Science and Justice.

May 2, 2024 — Ronnie Long in Conversation with Professor Jamie Lau of the Wrongful Convictions Clinic. This was part of the Thirteenth Conference on the Future of Adversarial and Inquisitorial Systems, hosted May 2-3, 2024 at UNC School of Law and Duke Law School. The conference series, “The Future of Adversarial and Inquisitorial Systems” is a collaboration between the Universities of Warwick, North Carolina, Bologna, Basel and Duke University. This year’s conference was made possible by support from the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law School, the University of North Carolina School of Law and the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University.

March 27, 2024 — The onset of the #BlackLivesMatter Era has opened scrutiny over what exactly should be police's goals and responsibilities in today's society. Can the police be trusted guardians of security and justice simultaneously? What are the pathways toward institutional change, whatever that may look like? And how are police departments themselves strategically navigating these efforts? This discussion engaged those questions with the authors of three new books: Tony Cheng: The Policing Machine: Enforcement, Endorsements, & the Illusion of Public Input; Michael Sierra- Arévalo, The Danger Imperative: Violence, Death and the Soul of Policing; Michelle Phelps, The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America. This discussion was moderated by Andrea Leverentz, Professor of Sociology at NC State University. This panel was sponsored by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law and the Department of Sociology at Duke University.

March 4, 2024 — The recent high-profile murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others have brought renewed attention to the dangers of police misconduct and the resulting harm to Black and Brown people and communities, in particular. How do we ensure public safety for all, including those harmed by or at risk of harm by police misconduct? And how can we effectively hold police accountable for that misconduct? This panel on these issues was moderated by Professor Ben Grunwald of Duke Law School and featured Dawn Blagrove, Executive Director of Emancipate NC; Tony Cheng, Author of The Policing Machine: Enforcement, Endorsements, and the Illusion of Public Input; and Joanna Schwartz, Author of Shielded, How the Police Became Untouchable. Sponsored by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law, Emancipate NC, the Duke Criminal Defense Clinic, and the Duke chapter of the National Lawyers Guild

February 29, 2024  — Jocelyn Simonson is a Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School and author of Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People are Dismantling Mass Incarceration. Simonson's scholarship explores bottom-up interventions in the criminal legal system, such as bail funds, copwatching, courtwatching, and participatory defense, asking how these real-life interventions should inform our conceptions of the design of criminal justice institutions, the discourse of constitutional rights, and the meaning of democratic justice. This Q&A and discussion was moderated by Professor Brandon Garrett.

February 5, 2024 — Kristin Henning is the Blume Professor of Law and Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at Georgetown Law. She previously worked for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where she was Lead Attorney for the Juvenile Unit. Henning discussed her book The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth with Professor Crystal Grant, Director of the Children’s Law Clinic. Sponsored by the Wilson Center for Science and Justice and the Children’s Law Clinic. This event was the part of the Wilson Center’s Novel Justice Series, which invites authors of recent scholarship on the criminal legal system to discuss their work.