Faculty News
Assistant Professor of Law William W. Berry III joined the faculty in August after serving as a visiting associate professor of law for the 2008-09 year. Berry teaches torts, labor and employment law, sports law and criminal law. His scholarship focuses primarily on the areas of sentencing and capital punishment. Berry’s most recent article, “Extraordinary and Compelling: A Re-examination of the Justifications for Compassionate Release,” originally published in the Maryland Law Review, will be reprinted in an international collection of articles titled Parole, published by Amicus Books.
P.J. Blount, research counsel at the National Center for Remote Sensing, Air and Space Law and instructor of law, participated in the Second Annual Junior Faculty Security Law Workshop in Austin, Texas, with his paper “Targeting in Outer Space.” He was an invited speaker at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ Space 2009, and he presented papers at the ESIL-ASIL Research Forum: Changing Futures—Science and International Law in Helsinki, Finland (“Developments in Space Security Law”) and the 52nd Colloquium on the Law of Outer Space in Daejeon, South Korea (“The Development of International Norms to Enhance Space Security Law in an Asymmetric World”). His article “If You Legislate It They Will Come: Using Incentive-Based Legislation to Attract the Commercial Space Industry” was recently published in the ABA’s Air & Space Lawyer. He continues to write for the NCRSASL’s blog Res Communis (http://rescommunis.wordpress.com).
John R. Bradley Jr., professor of law, has published the 2009 edition supplementing his treatise Mississippi Workers’ Compensation (Thomson West). This year also included the first reported case in which Mississippi workers obtained both compensatory and punitive damages from the employer for a work injury. The report of the case shows Bradley as a lawyer for the successful plaintiffs in Franklin Corp. v. Tedford, 18 So. 3d215 (Miss. 2009).
Philip Broadhead, director of the Criminal Appeals Clinic in the National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law and clinical professor of law, gave presentations titled “Who’s the Boss? II: Unanswered Ethical Issues in Effective Client Representation” at UM Continuing Legal Education and “Current Issues in Mississippi Law” at conferences in Natchez and Biloxi. He also was named a life member in the Mississippi Public Defenders Association.
Thomas Clancy, professor of law and director of the National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law, had several writings accepted for publication. “The Irrelevancy of the Fourth Amendment in the Roberts Court” is to be published in the Chicago-Kent Law Journal as part of a symposium; “The Fourth Amendment as a Collective Right” will be published in the Texas Tech Law Review next spring; a book review, “The Role of History: Book Review, William J. Cuddihy, The Fourth Amendment: Origins and Original Meaning,” will be published in 7 Ohio J. Crim. L. __ (spring 2010); and the “Foreword, Symposium: Great Dissents in Fourth Amendment Cases,” will be out this fall in volume 79 of the Mississippi Law Journal. He is currently drafting “The Framer’s Intent: John Adams and the Fourth Amendment” (forthcoming 2010). He recently spoke at judicial conferences in Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska and Nevada, and at the state bar convention in Kentucky. As part of his work as director of the National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law, Clancy also helps develop about a dozen conferences each year for trial and appellate judges, state prosecutors and law enforcement on cyber crime and search and seizure.
Dean Samuel M. Davis, Jamie L. Whitten Chair of Law and Government, will submit the manuscript of a new edition of his book, Children’s Rights and the Law, in December (Lexington Books). In November, he submitted the manuscript for the 2010 edition of his book Rights of Juveniles: The Juvenile Justice System (Thomson Reuters). This year he is serving as president of the Fellows of the Young Lawyers. He continues to serve on the Professionalism Committee of the Mississippi Bar. He is a fellow of the Mississippi Bar Foundation and is a member of the American Bar Foundation. Davis continues to serve on the board of North Mississippi Rural Legal Services, and he continues service as an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Michael H. Hoffheimer, professor of law and Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association Lecturer, is preparing the final page proofs for his book Conflict of Laws: Examples & Explanations (to be published by Aspen in 2010). The latest issue of Seton Hall Law Review will include his article “Race and Terror in Joseph Baldwin’s ‘Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi (1853),’” and a second article on Baldwin is scheduled to appear in a forthcoming issue of Legal Reference Services Quarterly. His research on legal themes in Bollywood films will appear in a forthcoming issue of University of Florida Entertainment Law Review. Hoffheimer is serving as officer of the Remedies Section of the Association of American Law Schools.
Donald R. Mason, research professor and associate director of the National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law, continues to help plan and teach training courses conducted by the NCJRL in partnerships with the National Association of Attorneys General, the National Judicial College and the National Forensics Training Center at Mississippi State University. Mason also has been assisting in the planning of four new training courses that the NCJRL will present for state judges in 2010 and 2011 on child pornography and other technology-assisted crimes against children. The development of the new courses is in partnership with the National Judicial College under the NCJRL’s new award through the Recovery Act expansion of the national Internet Crimes Against Children training and technical assistance program.
Lisa Roy, Jessie D. Puckett Jr. Lecturer and associate professor of law, published an article “History, Transparency, and the Establishment Clause: A Proposal for Reform” in the Penn State Law Review. Roy presented her paper “Can the Accommodationist Achieve Pluralism?” at the Law, Religion and Pluralism symposium held at Seattle University, and her paper was published in the Seattle University Law Review. Roy completed her service as a member of the Program Committee of the Law and Religion Section of the Association of American Law Schools, and she is a past co-chair of that section. Earlier this year, Roy coached the moot court team representing The University of Mississippi at the Religious Freedom Moot Court Competition held at George Washington University. Last year, Roy lectured on the “Basics of Contract Law” at the Justice Court Judges fall 2008 conference. In the area of professional responsibility, Roy moderated a legal ethics panel discussion hosted by the Phi Delta Phi International Legal Fraternity, and she continues to write professional responsibility questions for the Minnesota Board of Law Examiners. Currently Roy’s research focuses on the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, a case involving a proposed religious display in a city park.
Associate Dean Ron Rychlak’s article “Cards and Dice in Smokey Rooms: Tobacco Bans and Modern Casinos” was published in the Drake Law Review. He also reviewed Alan Dershowitz’s new book, Is There a Right to Remain Silent? Coercive Interrogation and the Fifth Amendment After 9/11, in the New Criminal Law Review. Along with a former Soviet bloc intelligence officer, he wrote “Leftist journalist a spy for Stalin: Ion Mihai Pacepa & Ronald J. Rychlak reveal truth about writer I.F. Stone,” which was published in WorldNetDaily. Rychlak presented “Free Speech on the Internet: The American Approach” at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools Conference in Florida, and he spoke on “Ethical and Unethical Uses of Demonstrative Evidence” at the Mississippi Law Update in Natchez. He has also made several presentations to community groups based upon his paper “Understanding Visual Exhibits in the Global Warming Debate” available online at www.heartland.org/xxx. Rychlak continues to serve as the university’s faculty athletics representative and chair of the Athletics Committee, as an adviser to the Holy See’s mission at the United Nations, on the editorial board of The Gaming Law Review and on the Mississippi Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
Stephanie Showalter, adjunct faculty member, wrote an article titled “Will California Law Apply to Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute’s Offshore Aquaculture Demonstration Project?: An Analysis of the Extraterritorial Application of State Aquaculture Laws,” which was accepted for publication by West-Northwest Journal of Environmental Law and Policy. Showalter, in her role as director of the law school’s National Sea Grant Law Center, also completed a major review of state laws addressing abandoned and derelict vessels for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In September, she presented the results of her research at a NOAA-sponsored abandoned vessel workshop in Miami, Fla. The National Association of State Boating Law Administrators is planning to update its model state law for abandoned vessels as a result of this workshop and has approached the Law Center to provide drafting assistance.
Hans Sinha, clinical professor of law, co-authored the “Mississippi Criminal Trial Practice: 2009 Supplement” published by West in fall 2009. His co-author was UM Professor Ron Rychlak. Sinha also wrote an article titled “The Discipline of Prosecutors: Should Intent be a Requirement?” published in the spring 2009 issue of Engage, the publication of the Federalist Society. He also wrote the second of a four-part series on prosecutorial ethics for The Prosecutor, the official magazine of the National District Attorney’s Association, titled “Prosecutorial Ethics: The Duty to Disclose Exculpatory Material,” published in 2008. The first of this series of prosecutor ethics articles intended for practicing prosecutors, “Prosecutorial Ethics: The Charging Decision” was published in 2007. Sinha gave a presentation titled “Advocate or Minister of Justice?: The Special Ethical Duties of the Prosecutor” at the Mississippi College of Law’s Corporations, Courtrooms, and the Constitution: Shades of Gray in the World of Legal Ethics, a legal symposium in Jackson in spring 2009. Sinha gave a presentation to Swedish prosecutors in Falun, Sweden, in May 2009 titled “The American Prosecutor—A Short Primer: History, Role, Power and Duties.” Sinha also lectured on “Electronic Exchange of Documents: The Ethics of Metadata” at a judicial conference sponsored by the National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law and the UM School of Law in August 2009. He has been invited to lecture in November 2009 on ethics and metadata by the Department of Justice’s National Advocacy Center in Columbia, S.C., where he will also serve as a judge in a mock sanctions hearing for federal prosecutors.
