Pepperdine Law Review Symposium 2024

Crime and Punishment: The Future of the Criminal Legal System

March 29, 2024 - 8 AM - 5 PM

Pepperdine Law Review is thrilled to invite you all to this year's annual symposium, which will be held at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law. The Symposium, entitled "Crime and Punishment: The Future of the Criminal Legal System," will feature a long list of distinguished experts, state and federal judges, and esteemed scholars from across the country. Speakers will discuss various topics related to future developments of the Supreme Court's criminal jurisprudence, state reforms to jury selection, the future of capital punishment, and more.

Opening Remarks (9–9:15 AM)

Panel 1 (9:15–10:30 AM)

Cert Granted: The Future of the Supreme Court’s Criminal Jurisprudence and the Role of the DOJ

Eric Feigin

Eric Feigin is a Deputy Solicitor General at the federal Department of Justice, with primary responsibility for criminal-law matters. Before joining the Solicitor General’s office as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in 2010, he worked on the Appellate Staff of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice and in private practice. He also served as a judicial law clerk for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the Fourth Circuit and Justice Stephen G. Breyer on the Supreme Court. 

Daniel Epps

Professor Daniel Epps, an esteemed faculty member at Washington University Law, is nationally recognized expert on the U.S. Supreme Court, constitutional law and theory, federal courts, and criminal law and procedure.  His work has appeared in esteemed law journals such as the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal and notable outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. Professor Epps is a leading voice on Supreme Court reform and gained attention for his Supreme Court restructuring proposal later endorsed by Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Professor Epps co-hosts the popular show Divided Argument which dissects the Court's decisions. Professor Epps graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. He clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the Fourth Circuit and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court. He spent several years as an appellate specialist at King & Spalding LLC. Prior to joining WashULaw, he was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. 

Joel S. Johnson (Moderator)

Professor Joel S. Johnson is an Associate Professor of Law at Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law. His research focuses on constitutional limits on substantive criminal law and explores the implications of those limits for statutory interpretation, criminal procedure, and federal courts.  Multiple federal courts have cited Professor Johnson’s scholarship, which has appeared or will appear in the University of Chicago Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, and the Virginia Law Review. Professor Johnson is an experienced Supreme Court and appellate litigator.  Before joining Pepperdine, he was an attorney in the Criminal Appellate Section of the Department of Justice, and an appellate specialist at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and Williams & Connolly LLP.  Professor Johnson graduated first in his class from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served as the Articles Development Editor of the Virginia Law Review and won the Margaret G. Hyde Award.  He clerked for Judge Robert D. Sack of the Second Circuit and for Judge T.S. Ellis III of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Morning Break (10:30–10:45 AM) 

Panel 2 (10:45–12:00 PM) 
Continued Decline or Inflection Point? The Future of Capital Punishment in the United States 

Elisabeth Semel

Elisabeth Semel is the Chancellor’s Clinical Professor of Law at Berkeley Law, Co-Director of the Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic, and expert on capital punishment and criminal defense. Semel joined the Berkeley Law faculty in 2001 as the first director of the Death Penalty Clinic. She represents clients facing capital punishment at all stages of the proceedings. Semel and her students have filed amicus curiae briefs in death penalty cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. Semel and the Death Penalty Clinic recently published “Whitewashing the Jury Box,” an influential report providing the evidentiary support for the California Legislature’s passage of AB 3070, which dramatically reformed jury selection in criminal trials. Semel graduated from UC Davis School of Law and became a deputy public defender. In 1980, she entered private practice and, in 1983, formed the firm of Semel & Feldman. In 1997, served as director of the American Bar Association Death Penalty Representation Project in Washington, D.C. Semel frequently provides media commentary on issues relating to the rights of individuals accused of crime, particularly those facing the death penalty.

Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Sarah Gerwig is a Professor at Mercer University School of Law, where she has previously served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. At Mercer, Gerwig founded the nationally-recognized Habeas Project, which provides pro bono representation in post-conviction cases across Georgia. She directs Mercer’s unique Introduction to Client Counseling program, and her textbook, What Brings You Here Today? An Introduction to Client Counseling, was published in Summer 2021. Gerwig is a McDonald Distinguished Fellow with Emory University’s Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Law and Religion, and writes on criminal law, mass incarceration, social justice, and legal education. Beyond her teaching and scholarship, she is engaged with a number of statewide nonprofit organizations, including the Georgia Resource Center, the Georgia Innocence Project, and the Altamaha Riverkeeper. Before joining the Mercer faculty, Professor Gerwig was the Senior Appellate Supervising Attorney in the central office of Georgia’s statewide public defender system. She received her J.D. from Emory Law School; and her Master of Theological Studies from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, where she studied with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. 

Sean Kennedy

Sean Kennedy is an Associate Clinical Professor of Law at Loyola Law School and the Kaplan & Feldman Executive Director of the Center for Juvenile Law & Policy. Prior to joining Loyola Law, Kennedy was the Federal Public Defender for the Central District of California from 2006 to 2014, and previously served as Chief of the Federal Public Defender Capital Habeas Unit. As an adjunct professor for more than 15 years, Kennedy has taught Appellate Advocacy and the Death Penalty Law Seminar, coached the Byrne Trial Advocacy Team, and served on the board of Loyola’s Advocacy Institute. In 2013, Kennedy was named Criminal Defense Attorney of the Year by the Los Angeles County Bar Association and received the Fidler Institute Award for Defense Lawyer of the Year from Loyola. He is a recipient of the Public Interest Award by Loyola’s Public Interest Law Foundation. Prior to working in public defense, Kennedy was an associate at Talcott, Lightfoot, Vandevelde, Woehrle & Sadowsky, LLP, where he handled white collar criminal defense cases. 

Ralph "Ron" Wright

Ralph “Ron” Wright Jr. was an Air Force Sergeant and Orange County Deputy Sheriff who spent three years wrongfully incarcerated. Ron was accused of the murder of a woman and her young son in 2007. There was no forensic evidence, weapon, cell records, or testimony incriminating Ron. The prosecution’s key piece of evidence was a black glove of the same kind issued to Ron's military unit; however, analysts were uncertain if it came from Ron's military base. DNA tests on the glove showed no definitive match for Ron, and independent lab analyses at the defense’s and prosecution’s request excluded Ron. In August 2014, he was convicted solely on the basis of potential motive and opportunity; a jury voted 7-5 to recommend the death penalty. In May 2017, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that all evidence was “purely circumstantial” and there was no evidence to prove Ron was the murderer. He was acquitted and became the 27th person to be exonerated from death row in Florida. Ron now lives in Florida, and along with many other Florida exonerees fights for death penalty abolition.

The Honorable Margo A. Rocconi (Moderator)

Judge Margo A. Rocconi is a United States Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California.  Judge Rocconi was sworn in on March 19, 2021, and sits in Los Angeles on the Court’s Western Division.  Before her appointment as a Magistrate Judge, Judge Rocconi served for over 25 years with distinction as a Deputy Federal Public Defender in the Central District of California, and served as Chief of the Capital Habeas Unit.  Before joining the Federal Public Defender’s Office, Judge Rocconi worked in a civil law firm.  Prior to that, she worked as a Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Scholar on the retired Justice’s private legal archive, known as The Brennan Papers.  In addition to her work as a Federal Public Defender, Judge Rocconi served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Loyola Law School.  Judge Rocconi received a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, from the University of California at Santa Barbara, a Juris Doctor from Pepperdine University School of Law, and a Master of Law from Georgetown University School of Law.

Lunch (12—1 PM)

Panel 3 (1—2:30 PM) 
Redefining the Jury Pool: State Efforts to End Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection and The Path Forward 

Chief Justice of the Washington Supreme Court Steven C. González

Chief Justice Steven C. González is the Washington Supreme Court's 58th Chief Justice. Chief Justice González oversaw the adoption of General Rule 37, a landmark rule aimed at eliminating racial discrimination in jury selections, which served as the model for similar reforms in California and other states. Before joining the Supreme Court, Chief Justice González served for ten years as a trial judge on the King County Superior Court. Prior to his election to the King County Superior Court, Chief Justice González practiced both criminal and civil law. He was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Western District of Washington, a Domestic Violence Prosecutor for the City of Seattle and in private practice at a Seattle law firm. Chief Justice González earned his J.D. from U.C. Berkeley School of Law where he was the Technical Editor of the La Raza Law Journal. He received Honorary Doctor of Laws Degrees from Gonzaga University School of Law in 2011 and the University of Puget Sound in 2015. 

Brendon Woods

Brendon Woods has been the Public Defender of Alameda County since 2012. Woods leads his office of 200 attorneys, investigators, and support staff, operating out of five offices, in providing the highest level of holistic legal defense in 26,000 cases per year. Woods is a nationally recognized leader and innovator in public defense. He is a Board Member and former President of the California Public Defenders Association (CPDA) and in 2016 was honored with the Harvard Law School Wasserstein Public Interest Fellowship for his outstanding public service accomplishments. He is an expert in holistic representation, racial profiling, community empowerment, police reform, and models of immigration representation. As Public Defender, Woods established a Clean Slate program and made his office the first in the country outside of New York to implement immigration representation within the Public Defender’s Office. Woods also developed a youth know-your-rights program to empower Black and Brown high school students and the VOICE program which has registered over 1,000 incarcerated individuals to vote. Woods received his J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Colleen Graffy (Moderator)

Colleen P. Graffy is an Associate Professor of Law at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law. Professor Colleen Graffy is a law professor at Pepperdine Caruso Law School specializing in international law and criminal law. She is an English Barrister and Bencher at Middle Temple and was based in London for many years as the Academic Director of Pepperdine’s London Law Program and Director of Global Programs. She served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the second Bush Administration working with over 40 embassies and a team in Washington, DC to communicate US foreign policy. Professor Graffy is a frequent commentator on television and radio and has written for the Washington Post, Wall St. Journal, The Sunday Times, The Times, The Telegraph, The Hill, and the Los Angeles Times. Her forthcoming article, First Twelve in the Box: Implicit Bias Driving the Peremptory Challenge to the Point of Extinction (Oregon Law Review) is on abolishing peremptory challenges. A link to the article can be found on SSRN. 

Afternoon Break (2:30—2:45 PM)

Panel 4 (2:45–4 PM) 
California Here We Come: The Future of The Golden State’s Criminal Legal System

Michael Romano

Michael Romano is the director and founder of the Three Strikes Project at Stanford Law School and Lecturer at Law. Romano has been at the forefront of criminal law reform and litigation for over a decade. He was principal author of the Three Strikes Reform Act (Proposition 36), one of the country’s first criminal justice reform initiatives, which led to the release of over 3,000 people serving life sentences for non-serious, non-violent crimes. Overall, Romano’s reforms and impact litigation have resulted in reduced sentences for tens of thousands of additional people. Michael also founded the Ride Home prisoner reentry program, which provides immediate assistance to formerly incarcerated people in 38 states and in 2015 partnered with the DOJ in support of President Obama’s executive clemency initiative. In 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Romano as inaugural chair of the California Committee on the Revision of the Penal Code. Romano graduated Stanford Law School in 2003 and was a John Knight Fellow at Yale Law School. He clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

 Chesa Boudin

Chesa Boudin is the founding executive director of Berkeley Law’s Criminal Law and Justice Center. He served as San Francisco’s elected district attorney from 2020 until his recall in 2022. During that time, Boudin implemented bold reforms to ensure that the criminal legal system delivered safety and justice for all San Franciscans. His achievements include a significant expansion of the office’s victim services’ division; eliminating prosecutors’ use of money bail; prosecuting police for excessive force; suing the manufacturers of ghost guns; expanding diversion to address root causes of crime; and a historic reduction in incarceration. During his time in office both violent and non-violent crime fell by double digits. Prior to his election, Boudin clerked for M. Margaret McKeown on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Charles Breyer on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In addition, Boudin worked for years as a deputy public defender in San Francisco. He is a graduate of Yale college and Yale law school and attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship.  

 

Priscilla Ocen

Priscilla Ocen is a Professor of Law at Loyola Law School. Ocen is the co-author (along with Kimberle Crenshaw and Jyoti Nanda) of the influential policy report, Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected. Most recently, Ocen served as a Special Assistant Attorney General for the California Department of Justice advising Attorney General Rob Bonta on criminal justice reform issues. Ocen was also a member and former Chair of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Oversight Commission. In 2021, Ocen was appointed to the California Penal Code Revision Committee by Governor Gavin Newsom. Ocen has previously served as a trainer for federal public defenders, assisted with developing new programs in domestic violence centers in South Los Angeles, and strategized with community groups regarding efforts to monitor confinement conditions in the Los Angeles County women’s jail. Ocen received her J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles and clerked for the Honorable Eric L. Clay of the Sixth Circuit and served as the Thurgood Marshall Fellow at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

Ronald J. Broomfield

Ronald J. Broomfield is the Director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Division of Adult Institutions. Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Broomfield to serve as Co-Chair of the San Quentin Transformation Advisory Council. The Advisory Council has provided recommendations and a plan with the goal to bring transformational programmatic, cultural and physical change to California’s prisons, and recently submitted its report to CDCR on transforming San Quentin. He served as Warden of San Quentin Rehabilitation Center from 2020 to 2023. He previously served as Chief Deputy Warden of San Quentin from 2017 to 2020 before becoming Warden. From 2002 to 2017, he held several positions at California State Prison Corcoran including Associate Warden, Correctional Captain, Correctional Counselor II Supervisor, Correctional Counselor, and Correctional Officer. He started with CDCR as a Correctional Officer at Salinas Valley State Prison in 2001. Previously, Broomfield was a Jail Officer at the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Department from 1998 to 2001. Broomfield earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from California Lutheran University.

Jacob Charles (Moderator)

Professor Jake Charles is a constitutional law scholar focusing on the Second Amendment and firearms law. He joined Pepperdine Caruso Law after serving as the inaugural executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law, where he remains an affiliated scholar. He has served as the Chair of the Section on Firearms Law of the American Association of Law Schools and is an affiliate scholar of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government. Professor Charles’s primary research interests include the legal regulation of state and private violence, Second Amendment doctrine and theory, and the place of guns in the criminal legal system. He is the co-author of a forthcoming Foundation Press casebook on the Second Amendment and co-editor of an Oxford University Press collection of historical essays on gun laws.