Daniel Medwed
University Distinguished Professor of Law and Criminal Justice and Faculty Director, Professional Development, Northeastern University | Faculty Affiliate, Global Resilience Institute
Boston, MA, UNITED STATES
Professor Medwed teaches Criminal Law, Evidence, and Advanced Criminal Procedure: Wrongful Convictions and Post-Conviction Remedies.
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Biography
Professor Medwed teaches Criminal Law, Evidence, and Advanced Criminal Procedure: Wrongful Convictions and Post-Conviction Remedies. His research and pro bono activities revolve around the topic of wrongful convictions. His book, Prosecution Complex: America’s Race to Convict and Its Impact on the Innocent (New York University Press, 2012), explores how even well-meaning prosecutors may contribute to wrongful convictions because of cognitive biases and an overly-deferential regime of legal and ethical rules. His recently published Wrongful Convictions and the DNA Revolution: Twenty-Five Years of Freeing the Innocent (Cambridge University Press, 2017), discusses the lessons learned from a quarter century of DNA exonerations. Professor Medwed is a legal analyst for WGBH News, Boston’s local NPR and PBS affiliate.
In 2013, Professor Medwed received one of Northeastern’s most prestigious prizes, the Robert D. Klein University Lectureship, which is awarded to a member of the faculty across the university who has obtained distinction in his or her field of study. He is a founding member of the board of directors of the Innocence Network, a consortium of innocence projects throughout the world, and a former president of the board of directors of the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center in Salt Lake City. He currently serves on the board of directors of the New England Innocence Project as well as Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts.
Prior to joining Northeastern in 2012, Professor Medwed was professor of law at the University of Utah. He also previously served as an instructor at Brooklyn Law School and helped oversee the school’s Second Look Program, where he worked with students to investigate and litigate innocence claims by New York state prisoners. Professor Medwed has earned numerous teaching prizes over the course of his career. He has also worked in private practice and as an associate appellate counsel at the Legal Aid Society, Criminal Appeals Bureau, of New York City.
Areas of Expertise (3)
Cognitive Biases
Social and Community
Wrongful Convictions
Education (2)
Harvard Law School: JD 1995
Yale College: BA 1991
Links (4)
Media Appearances (5)
Hampden district attorney asks judge to dismiss claims his office failed to properly investigate alleged police beating
Mass Live online
2018-07-03
The Hampden District Attorney's Office is asking a federal judge to dismiss a civil suit claiming that prosecutors failed to properly investigate an alleged 2015 police beating in Springfield.
Deep In The Weeds With Daniel Part 3: Local Governments' Resistance To The Recreational Marijuana Industry
WGBH online
2018-06-21
On July 1, businesses with the proper licenses can officially start selling recreational marijuana to anyone 21 years or older in Massachusetts. But the sale and use of marijuana carries a lot of restrictions, as well as resistance, depending on what part of the state you live in.
Deep in The Weeds With Daniel Part 2: Legal Cannabis Still Carries Threat of Criminal Charges
WGBH online
2018-06-12
On July 1, businesses with the proper licenses can officially start selling recreational marijuana to anyone 21 years or older in Massachusetts. But the sale and use of marijuana carries a lot of restrictions, as well as resistance, depending on what part of the state you live in.
Where The A.J. Baker Case Stands Now
WGBH online
2018-07-02
On the evening of June 20, in a transmission captured by the website LiveATC.net, JetBlue flight 1354 approached Logan Airport and reported a problem on board.
Brendan Dassey: Is convicted killer in 'Making a Murderer' case a 'tragic figure?'
Post Crescent online
2018-07-02
To his supporters, Brendan Dassey is an easily manipulated person who, at age 16, falsely confessed to the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. State justice officials counter that Dassey's admissions were truthful and he belongs in prison.
Research Grants (1)
Establishing the Center on Crime and Community Resilience
Global Resilience Institute
Northeastern University is in the process of establishing the Center on Crime and Community Resilience. As described below, the Center will collaborate with the City of Boston to understand and address persistent public safety problems. The establishment of this research infrastructure will better position Northeastern to acquire external funding to support action-oriented research on crime and community resilience issues in other cities across the U.S. and internationally. The requested seed funding will support the hire of an Executive Director and one PhD student during the Center’s first year of existence. We anticipate making a “soft launch” of the Center during spring 2018 and formalize its operations at Northeastern over the course of the 2018-2019 academic year. The Co-PIs will work with the Executive Director to develop meaningful research partnerships with faculty and students across the nine colleges, work with City of Boston officials to initiate specific action research projects, and create external funding opportunities for projects in other cities. The Co-PIs will work with the GRI-supported PhD student on a specific Boston-based action research project during summer 2018. The Center will become a key GRI partner to support its university-wide interdisciplinary effort to advance resilience-related initiatives at Northeastern and beyond.
Articles (5)
Grand Finality: Post-Conviction Prosecutors and Capital Punishment
Final Judgments: The Death Penalty and American Law
Daniel S. Medwed
2016 In the years since the United States Supreme Court permitted reinstatement of the death penalty, scholars have paid close attention to the question of why prosecutors charge a crime as a capital offense. But the scholarly community has largely ignored some related questions. Why do many prosecutors assigned to handle the appellate and post-conviction phases of a capital case — those entrusted with the task of defending death — fight tooth-and-nail to preserve the trial outcome? Even more, why might those prosecutors reject defense overtures to join in a request for an evidentiary hearing or new trial in situations where they had nothing to do with the original charging decision and have misgivings about the propriety of the trial proceedings?
Bar None? Prisoners' Rights in the Modern Age
Northeastern University Law Journal
Daniel S. Medwed
2015 The American public is perhaps more sensitized to the flaws in our criminal justice system than at any time in our history. News accounts of wrongful convictions, racial profiling, violent police-citizen encounters, and botched executions have called into question the policies of a nation that imprisons more people than any other developed nation – upwards of 1.5 million people housed in state or federal prisons according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. To some extent, this period of questioning and reflection has produced gains; we have witnessed a modest shift away from mandatory minimum sentencing and toward the decriminalization of some narcotics. Parole boards have shown a rising awareness that inmates’ claims of innocence should not be held against them in their release decisions. Even more, some states – most notably, Michigan – have formulated innovative re-entry programs to assist prisoners in making the perilous transition from their cell blocks to residential and commercial blocks in neighborhoods throughout the country. These events have prompted some observers to envision an end to mass incarceration in the United States.
The Age of Innocence at Maturity (Reviewing Sarah Lucy Cooper, Ed., Innocence Controversies in America (2014))
Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books
Daniel S. Medwed
2014 The effort to investigate and litigate claims of innocence by prisoners has experienced growing pains in the twenty-five years since post-conviction DNA testing first exonerated an American inmate. But now it is fair to say that these collective efforts have reached an age of maturity; they represent a true political, legal and social “movement.” Innocence Controversies in America, a collection of essays edited by Sarah Lucy Cooper, evaluates the impact of this movement. It is a nice addition to the scholarly literature, with offerings from some of the finest academics in the field.
The Good Fight: The Egocentric Bias, the Aversion to Cognitive Dissonance, and the American Criminal Law
Journal of Law and Policy
Daniel S. Medwed
2014 The phrase “cognitive bias” often has negative connotations. It is something to be overcome, thwarted, or, at best, circumvented. In this essay, I suggest that two interrelated cognitive biases — the egocentric bias and the aversion to cognitive dissonance — might instead serve as potential assets for a criminal law practitioner in persuading her constituencies.
Youth Disserved (Reviewing Barry C. Feld, Kids, Cops, and Confessions: Inside the Interrogation Room (2013))
Crime, Law and Social Change
Daniel S. Medwed
2013 Notwithstanding its prominence in Law & Order television episodes, the police interrogation room remains shrouded in mystery - and mythology. What actually happens within these walls? Is the interrogation room a modern-day star chamber where aggressive police intimidate overmatched suspects through trickery and occasionally much more? Or is it a venue for well-trained and well-meaning detectives to uncover important, time-sensitive information about pending criminal cases? Or is the truth much more complicated?
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