Chris Slobogin

Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law Vanderbilt University

  • Nashville TN

Expert in criminal law and procedure, mental health law and evidence law.

Contact

Vanderbilt University

View more experts managed by Vanderbilt University

Spotlight

1 min

Criminal law expert on Derek Chauvin trial

Chris Slobogin, Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law and Director of Vanderbilt's Criminal Justice Program, is available for commentary and analysis on the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Chris is an expert in criminal law and procedure, mental health law and evidence. He is the author of more than 100 articles, books and chapters and 200 judicial opinions, including three U.S. Supreme Court decisions. He has also served on the American Law Institute's Principles of Police Investigation Project, which focuses on the legal issues related to police procedures.

Chris  Slobogin

Biography

Slobogin has authored more than 100 articles, books and chapters on topics relating to criminal law and procedure, mental health law and evidence. Named director of Vanderbilt Law School’s Criminal Justice Program in 2009, Slobogin is one of the five most cited criminal law and procedure law professors in the country over the past five years, according to the Leiter Report, and one of the top 50 most cited law professors overall from 2005-2015, according to Hein Online.

Slobogin has served as reporter for three American Bar Association task forces (on Law Enforcement and Technology; the Insanity Defense; and Mental Disability and the Death Penalty) and as chair of both the ABA’s task force charged with revising the Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards and the ABA’s Florida Assessment team for the Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project. He is currently an Associate Reporter for the American Law Institute's Principles of Police Investigation Project. In recognition for his work in mental health law, in 2016 Slobogin received both the American Board of Forensic Psychology's Distinguished Contribution Award and the American Psychology-Law Society’s Distinguished Contribution of Psychology and Law Award; only a total of five law professors have received either of these awards in their 30-year history, and none has received both awards. Before joining Vanderbilt's law faculty, Slobogin held the Stephen C. O'Connell chair at the University of Florida's Fredric G. Levin College of Law. He has also been a visiting professor at Stanford Law School, where he was the Edwin A. Heafey Visiting Scholar, as well as at Hastings, Southern California and Virginia law schools and at the University of Frankfurt Law School in Germany, the Montpellier Law School in France, and the University of Kiev, Ukraine, where he was a Fulbright Scholar.

Slobogin has appeared on Good Morning America, Nightline, the Today Show, National Public Radio, and many other media outlets, and has been cited in almost 5,000 law review articles and treatises and more than 200 judicial opinions, including three U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Slobogin holds a secondary appointment as a professor in the Vanderbilt School of Medicine's Department of Psychiatry.

Areas of Expertise

Juvenile Crime
Insanity Defense
Criminal Procedure
Evidence Law
Criminal Law
Mental Health Law
Insanity Plea
Juvenile Law

Accomplishments

Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award

Hartman Division, 2018-19 (awarded to best small course professor at Vanderbilt University Law School)

Among Most Cited Criminal Law & Procedure Professors

2013-2017 (No. 3), according to Brian Leiter

Hein Online Top Law Scholars, 2016

(No. 36) (based on number of times cited by articles in the past ten years, number of times cited by cases, and number of times accessed)

Education

University of Virginia

LL.M.

Law

1979

University of Virginia Law School

J.D.

Law

1977

Princeton University

A.B.

1973

Affiliations

  • Saks Institute for Mental Health Law
  • SSRN Law & Psychology Journal
  • Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

Selected Media Appearances

Derek Chauvin Is Sentenced To 22 1/2 Years For George Floyd's Murder

NPR  online

2021-06-25

"Because sentencing of a police officer for homicide is so rare, the judge was in somewhat uncharted waters," said Christopher Slobogin, a criminal law professor at Vanderbilt University.

View More

Police use of force on ex-Trump campaign manager familiar during crisis calls, experts say

Washington Post  online

2020-09-29

“What are cops trained to do?” said Christopher Slobogin, a law professor at Vanderbilt University. “They’re trained to use force. Acting completely in good faith and not ascribing any bad motives to them, they do what they’re trained to do.”

View More

Fact check: Obama administration implemented several police and prison reforms

USA Today  online

2020-09-22

Christopher Slobogin, director of Vanderbilt Law School's Criminal Justice Program, pointed to consent decrees implemented by the Obama administration as proof of reform. A consent decree is a court-ordered agreement between law enforcement and the Department of Justice to correct systemic misconduct in police departments.

Slobogin said because of the administration's negotiations with a dozen cities, it "substantially changed the structure and conduct of police departments."

View More

Show All +

Selected Articles

A Defense of Modern Risk-Based Sentencing

Predictive Sentencing: Normative and Empirical Perspectives

Chris Slobogin

2019

"The story of sentencing over the past half-century is well known (see van Ginneken, Chapter 2 in this volume). Throughout the 1960s, the sentencing regimes in most American and European jurisdictions were indeterminate, with broad sentencing ranges within which judges and parole boards determined sentence length, based on an amalgam of retributive, deterrent, incapacitative and rehabilitative considerations."

View more

The use of statistics in criminal cases: An introduction

Behavioral sciences & the law

Christopher Slobogin

2019

"Statistics are increasingly playing a crucial role in criminal cases. As the articles in this Special Issue illustrate, they can form the principal basis for expert testimony (e.g., with respect to risk assessments), heavily influence decisions about policy (e.g., constitutional doctrine governing police stop‐and‐frisk practices), and help courts evaluate the admissibility of expert testimony (e.g., via proficiency testing)."

View more

Risks of compulsory genetic databases—Response

American Association for the Advancement of Science

JW Hazel, EW Clayton, BA Malin, C Slobogin

2018

"In response to evidence that neonicotinoids are lethal to nontarget pollinator insects and therefore have major impacts on biodiversity (1, 2), the European Union banned their use in member countries in April 2018 (3)."

View more