Questioning law school priorities in instruction and programming
As Dan Filler notes in this post at The Faculty Lounge, at the terrific U Penn Eighth Amendment symposium last week I complained about the over-emphasis on capital punishment instruction and related programming in law schools. Here is how Dan nicely summarizes my comments:
He argues (his stats, not mine) that about 150 law schools offer courses on the death penalty, while only about 30 offer general sentencing classes. And Sharon Dolovich and Margo Schlanger piped up that there are no more than 5 lecture-style courses on the constitutional law of incarceration and corrections. Doug contends that this reflects the preferences of law faculty — who find the death penalty a glossy and compelling issue — and also serves to reproduce this view of the world on the part of students. He argues that those seeking real change in criminal justice policy should refocus students on the big picture issues like mass incarceration, oversentencing, prison conditions, and the like.
I am drawn back to these comments today upon tripping across this law school website that indicates that nearly 100 law schools have a course on animal law. The website explains: “Nearly half of US law schools teach an overview course and a growing number of schools now offer clinical opportunities. Lewis & Clark Law School has the most developed animal law program offering six courses, including summer courses, moot court, and the Animal Law Clinic.” To my knowledge, though there are death penalty clinics at many law schools (including in states that do not have the death penalty), I am not aware of any established sentencing clinics or prisoner rights’ moot courts.
I suppose it is a sad and telling commentary that many law schools have devoted more resources toward having students question the legal treatment of animals than the legal treatment of criminal offenders. Perhaps advocates for sentencing and corrections reform need to find some incarcerated people with sad puppy-dog eyes so that humans locked in cages will evoke as much sympathy in elite law schools as animals locked in cages. Then again, if the human has committed a brutal murder and been sentenced to death row, the offender is then likely to get lots of attention no matter what his eyes look like.