Griffin's Research on Criminal Case Processing Cited in Stanford Law Review
Research by Christopher L. Griffin, Jr., an assistant professor at William & Mary Law School, has been highlighted in the Stanford Law Review’s recent special issue on empirical legal scholarship.
In one of six articles dedicated to separate substantive legal issues, “Empirical Criminal Law Scholarship and the Shift to Institutions,” Robert Weisberg, the Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, cites Griffin’s work on racial/ethnic disparities in criminal case processing. Griffin’s paper, tracing major decisions by prosecutors and judges, identifies both when disparities arise and, surprisingly, when judicial actors cause them to narrow. Weisberg mentions the piece as an example of how statistical findings can inform government in the context of institutional decisions within the formal legal system.
Griffin’s research was originally presented at the 7th Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies held at Stanford Law School in November 2012. His paper, now titled “Corrections for Racial Disparities in Law Enforcement,” co-written with Frank A. Sloan and Lindsey M. Eldred of Duke University, provides a comprehensive examination of criminal dispositions using all DWI cases in North Carolina from 2001-11.
Griffin came to William & Mary in 2012 from a visiting assistant professor position at Duke University Law School. He received his undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University as well as an M.Phil. in economics from the University of Oxford, and graduated from Yale Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics, an editor of the Yale Law Journal, and editor-in-chief of the Yale Law & Policy Review. His research interests focus on empirical studies of employment discrimination, disability, labor law, and criminal procedure; and his articles have been published by the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies and the Utah Law Review.
Griffin’s paper on criminal case processing will appear in Volume 55 of the William & Mary Law Review.