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Symposium on Discretion in the Legal System
October 25, 2024 @ 9:00 am - 6:00 pm
The Berkeley Criminal Law & Justice Center; Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law; the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College; and the Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics at Hofstra Law are organizing a symposium on the role of discretion in the legal system, with a focus on prosecutorial and judicial discretion.
Topics include discretion in charging decisions, judicial and prosecutorial discretion in sentencing, discretion in immigration-considerations, and the political weaponization of prosecutorial discretion. Our keynote speaker will be Cook County (IL) State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, and other featured speakers include:
Alexandra Natapoff, Harvard Law School
Andrea Roth, Berkeley Law
Anita Gupta, Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration
Aramis Ayala, Ninth Judicial Circuit (FL) State Attorney
David Satnarine, Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office
Ellen Podgor, Stetson University College of Law
Ellen Yaroshefsky, Hofstra University Law
Erwin Chemerinsky, Berkeley Law
George Gascón, Los Angeles County District Attorney
Hillary Blout, For The People
Jodi Linker, Federal Public Defender (N.D. Cal.)
John Choi, Ramsey County (MN) District Attorney
John Gleeson, former U.S. District Judge (E.D.N.Y.), U.S. Sentencing Commission
Lucas Guttentag, Stanford Law School
Melinda Haag, former U.S. Attorney (N.D. Cal.)
Mike Romano, Stanford Three Strikes Project, California Penal Code Committee
Pamela Metzger, SMU Law Deason Center
Pamela Price, Alameda County District Attorney
Rachel Marshall, Institute for Innovation in Prosecution (IIP) at John Jay College
Raha Jorjani, Alameda County Public Defenders
Rebecca Goldstein, Berkeley Law
Sherry Boston, DeKalb County (GA) District Attorney
- Introduction (9:00 AM – 9:30 AM)
- Panel 1 (9:30 AM – 11:00 AM) – Charging panel: examining the role that prosecutorial discretion plays in charging decisions
- Break (11:00 AM – 11:30 AM)
- Panel 2 (11:30 AM – 1:00 PM) – Sentencing panel: examining the role of judicial and prosecutorial discretion in sentencing decisions in both federal and state courts
- Lunch & Keynote Address (1:00 PM – 2:00 PM) – Keynote Address from Cook County (IL) State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. Lunch provided.
- Panel 3 (2:00 PM – 3:30 PM) – Immigration panel: exploring how prosecutors and judges can use discretion to improve outcomes for noncitizens
- Break (3:30 PM – 4:00 PM)
- Panel 4 (4:00 PM – 5:30 PM) – Politics panel: detailing ways that prosecutorial and judicial discretion are being weaponized and used by political opponents to seize power.
- Closing Remarks (5:30 PM – 5:45 PM)