Faculty Directory
Daniel S. Medwed
Professor of LawYale College, BA 1991
Harvard Law School, JD 1995
Mail: 400 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: (617) 373-6590
Fax: (617) 373-5056
E-mail: d.medwed@neu.edu
Professor Medwed teaches Criminal Law, Evidence, and Advanced Criminal Procedure: Wrongful Convictions and Post-Conviction Remedies. His research interests and pro bono activities revolve primarily 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 occasionally contribute to wrongful convictions because of cognitive biases and an overly-deferential regime of legal and ethical rules. He is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Innocence Network, a consortium of innocence projects across the world, and is a former President of the Board of Directors of the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center in Salt Lake City.
Prior to joining Northeastern in 2012, Professor Medwed was a member of the law faculty of the University of Utah. He previously served as an instructor at Brooklyn Law School and assistant director of the school’s Second Look Program, where he worked with students investigating and litigating innocence claims by New York state prisoners. Professor Medwed has earned numerous teaching prizes over the course of his career, including the University of Utah College of Law’s Peter W. Billings Excellence in Teaching Award, a University of Utah Early Career Teaching Award, a Student Choice Teaching Award from the Associated Students of the University of Utah, and two Professor of the Year awards at Brooklyn Law School. 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.
Fields of Expertise
- Criminal Law
- Criminal Procedure
Selected Works
Books
Selected Articles
“Closing the Door on Misconduct: Rethinking the Ethical Standards that Govern Summations in Criminal Trials,” 38 Hasting Constitutional Law Quarterly 915, 2011 (symposium on criminal justice ethical standards)
“Brady’s Bunch of Flaws,” 67 Washington & Lee Law Review 1533, 2010 (symposium on comparative criminal law)
“Emotionally Charged: The Prosecutorial Charging Decision and the Innocence Revolution,” 31 Cardozo Law Review 2187, 2010 (symposium on prosecutorial disclosure obligations)
“The Prosecutor as Minister of Justice: Preaching to the Unconverted from the Post-Conviction Pulpit,” 84 Washington Law Review 35, 2009 (symposium on prosecutorial ethics)
“Innocentrism,” 2008 University of Illinois Law Review 1549, 2008
“Counting Innocence,” 31 Criminal Justice Ethics 21, 2012 (book review of Brandon Garrett, “Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong,” 2011)
“Prosecutorial Ethics in the Postconviction Setting from A to Zacharias,” 48 San Diego Law Review 331, 2011 (tribute to the late Fred Zacharias)
“The Gold(smith) Standard,” 2010 BYU Law Review 345, 2010 (tribute to the late Michael Goldsmith)
“Introduction: Path Forward or Road to Nowhere? Implications of the 2009 National Academy of Sciences Report on the Forensic Sciences,” 2010 Utah Law Review 221, 2010 (symposium on forensic scientific evidence)
“Introduction: Beyond Biology: Wrongful Convictions in the Post-DNA World,” 2008 Utah Law Review 1, 2008 (symposium on wrongful convictions)
“The Innocent Prisoner’s Dilemma: Consequences of Failing to Admit Guilt at Parole Hearings,” 93 Iowa Law Review 491, 2008
“California Dreaming? The Golden State’s Restless Approach to Newly Discovered Evidence of Innocence,” 40 U.C. Davis Law Review 1437, 2007
“Innocence Lost . . . and Found: An Introduction to the Faces of Wrongful Conviction Conference,” 37 Golden Gate University L. Rev., 2006 (symposium on wrongful convictions)
“Anatomy of a Wrongful Conviction: Theoretical Implications and Practical Solutions,” 51 Villanova Law Review 337, 2006
“Looking Foreword: Wrongful Convictions and Systemic Reform,” 42 American Criminal Law Review 1117, 2005 (symposium on wrongful convictions)
“Up the River without a Procedure: Innocent Prisoners an Newly Discovered Non-DNA Evidence in State Courts,” 47 Arizona Law Review 655, 2005
“The Zeal Deal: Prosecutorial Resistance to Post-Conviction Claims of Innocence,” 84 Boston University Law Review 125, 2004
“Actual Innocents: Considerations in Selecting Cases for a New Innocence Project,” 81 Nebraska Law Review 1097, 2003
Online Materials
Drug Lab Scandal: What Did Prosecutors Know?, WBUR: Cognoscenti (Nov. 1, 2012) (op-ed)
Justice in New England, The Podium, Boston Globe (Oct. 15, 2012) (op-ed)
Yes, They Can: Prosecutors Doing Justice in New York, NYU Press Blog (Aug. 9, 2012) (op-ed)
When Prosecutors Behave Badly, Houston Chronicle (Feb. 24, 2012) (op-ed)
