Criminal Justice Faculty

Akhil Reed Amar is currently Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. He received his B.A, summa cum laude, in 1980 from Yale College, and his J.D. in 1984 from Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of The Yale Law Journal.

Monica Bell is a Professor of Law and an Associate Professor of Sociology at Yale University. Bell works at the intersection of law and sociology, using sociological theory and research to explore legal questions regarding race and class inequality. Some subject matters that Bell has focused on include policing, violence, safety and security, welfare and public benefits, housing, and residential segregation.

Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, where he has taught since 1982. Among his courses are law and religion, the ethics of war, contracts, evidence, and professional responsibility.

Fiona Doherty is Nathan Baker Clinical Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She founded the Criminal Justice Clinic, which defends indigent clients accused of felony and misdemeanor offenses in New Haven. She also teaches courses in Criminal Law and Sentencing. Professor Doherty is a recipient of the Yale Provost’s Teaching Prize.

Professor Steven B. Duke teaches and writes on criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence, and drug policy. He received his B.S. degree from Arizona State University and his J.D. from the University of Arizona, where he was editor-in-chief of the first Arizona Law Review.

James Forman Jr. is the J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law. Professor Forman’s scholarship focuses on schools, police, and prisons. He is particularly interested in the race and class dimensions of those institutions. In January 2022, Forman helped launch the Yale Law and Racial Justice Center, which brings together New Haveners, Yale students, staff, and faculty, local government officials, and local and national experts to imagine and implement projects advancing racial justice.

Miriam Gohara is a Clinical Professor of Law. Before joining the Yale Law School faculty, Professor Gohara spent 16 years representing death-sentenced clients in post-conviction litigation. Professor Gohara teaches and writes about capital and non-capital sentencing, incarceration, and the historical and social forces implicated in culpability and punishment.

Elizabeth Hinton is Associate Professor of History in the Department of History and the Department of African American Studies at Yale, with a secondary appointment as Professor of Law at the Law School.

Dan Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law at Yale Law School. In addition to risk perception, his areas of research include criminal law and evidence.

Issa Kohler-Hausmann is Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Associate Professor of Sociology at Yale. Her primary research interests are in criminal law, sociology of law, empirical legal studies, social and legal theory.

Tracey L. Meares is the Walton Hale Hamilton Professor and a Founding Director of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School. Professor Meares is a nationally recognized expert on policing in urban communities. Her research focuses on understanding how members of the public think about their relationship(s) with legal authorities such as police, prosecutors and judges. She teaches courses on criminal procedure, criminal law, and policy.

Marisol Orihuela is a Clinical Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She was most recently a Deputy Federal Public Defender at the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Los Angeles. She has previously worked as a Staff Attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

Judith Resnik is the Arthur Liman Professor of Law at Yale Law School and the Founding Director of the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law. She teaches courses on federalism, procedure, courts, prisons, equality, and citizenship.

Jed Rubenfeld is a Professor of Law at Yale Law School. His subjects are constitutional law, privacy, First Amendment, and criminal law. His recent books include Freedom and Time and Revolution by Judiciary: The Structure of American Constitutional Law.

Kate Stith, Lafayette S. Foster Professor of Law at Yale Law School, teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. Prior to joining the faculty at Yale, Professor Stith was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where she prosecuted white-collar and organized-crime cases.

Tom R. Tyler is the Macklin Fleming Professor Emeritus of Law as well as a Founding Director of The Justice Collaboratory. His research explores the role of justice in shaping people’s relationships with groups, organizations, communities, and societies. In particular, he examines the role of judgments about the justice or injustice of group procedures in shaping legitimacy, compliance, and cooperation.

James Q. Whitman is the Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School. His subjects are comparative law, criminal law, and legal history.

Gideon Yaffe is Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School. His research interests include the philosophy of law, particularly criminal law; the study of metaphysics including causation, free will and personal identity; and the study of intention and the theory of action.