First amendment, issues of race among 'Right to Fair Trial' topics

Legal experts will debate the right to a fair trial at the University of Chicago Legal Forum Symposium on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 7 and 8, at the Law School.

The Honorable Danny Boggs, circuit judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, will open the symposium with a keynote address at 4 p.m. Friday, Nov. 7. The symposium, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Weymouth Kirkland Courtroom at the Law School.

"In the modern era, the right to a fair trial faces threats from both inside and outside the courtroom," said David Gordon, editor-in-chief of the Forum. "This year's event will consider many difficult questions. For example, should juries embrace or ignore nullification? And what should courts do when criminal procedures designed to ensure a fair trial hurt the people they were designed to protect?"

Sessions on Saturday, Nov. 8, will begin at 9 a.m. with "The First Amendment in the Courthouse," with panelists Peter Arenella, law professor at UCLA; Stephen Jones of the Oklahoma firm Jones, Wyatt & Roberts, who represented Timothy McVeigh; and David Strauss, the Harry N. Wyatt Professor in the Law School. Provost Geoffrey Stone, the Harry Kalven Jr. Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School, will moderate the discussion.

The conference will continue at 11:15 a.m. with "Race and the Criminal Jury," which will include Jeffrey Abramson, visiting professor of government at Harvard; Deborah Ramirez, law professor at Northeastern; and Jeffrey Rosen, associate law professor at George Washington University and legal affairs editor of New Republic. The session will be moderated by Randolph Stone, Clinical Professor in the Law School and Director of the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic.

The final session, "Solutions to Overproceduralism," at 2:15 p.m., will feature Dan Kahan, Professor in the Law School; Debra Livingston, associate professor of law at Columbia University; Tracey Meares, Assistant Professor in the Law School; and Jordan Steiker, the Cooper K. Ragan Regents professor of law at the University of Texas. Albert Alschuler, the Wilson-Dickinson Professor and Arnold and Freda Shure Scholar in the Law School, will be the moderator.

The University of Chicago Legal Forum is a student-edited law journal, published by second- and third-year law students. Each year the Legal Forum holds a two-day symposium at the Law School where academics, judges and legal scholars debate a topic of current interest to the legal community and society as a whole. Following the symposium, participants submit articles based on their presentations and discussions. The articles are edited by members of the Legal Forum and, together with student-written works, are published in a bound volume issued next fall.