Pro Bono Publico and Awards Committee
Bronson Dillehay Award for Research, Scholarship, and Education in Procedural Justice
The Bronson Dillehay Award for Research, Scholarship, and Education in Procedural Justice was established 3 years ago to honor the dedication of Ed Bronson and Ron Dillehay. These two terrific scholars have over the course of their long careers made many contributions to the field of procedural justice. The common thread of their work is identifying, evaluating, and reducing, as much as possible, the impact of prejudice and bias on jury decision making. As testifying experts in state and federal courts, Ron and Ed were very successful at educating judges and helping litigants obtain a variety of procedural remedies to protect their right to a fair trial.
The purpose of this Award is to recognize and to promote the work of others who are working on procedural justice issues in the legal and social science communities. Continued research, writing, and training that takes on the problems of prejudice and bias is essential to our work as trial consultants, and we hope this Award will help encourage the next generation to pursue the important work Ron and Ed have been doing for the past 30 years.
The ASTC Foundation acts as the fiscal agent for this Award, and welcomes tax deductible contributions dedicated to supporting and increasing the incentives this Award will provide.
The award this year has been granted to Mimi Samuels, who is a legal writing professor at the Seattle University School of Law. She has proposed a novel approach to enhancing appellate review of Batson challenges. Her article examines the case law on Batson noting that attorneys frequently use the non-verbal responses of prospective jurors as a justification when faced with a Batson challenge. Appellate courts have no way to conduct any meaningful review of the trial judge’s ruling on that very common justification, so Dr. Samuels proposes videotaping jury selection proceedings to create a more complete record of the voir dire and the possibility of more meaningful appellate review. Her article is both informative and thought provoking, offering a simple but potentially powerful enhancement of the protection Batson was intended to provide. Dr. Samuels is currently teaching legal writing in South Africa, so she is unable to join us at the conference for the presentation of this Award, but she was very honored to have been selected.
Dr. Samuel's article is being published in the Brooklyn Law Review, advance copies are available here: Focus on Batson: Let the Cameras Roll
About the Committee:
The committee is responsible for collection nominations for the pro-bono award, determining the winner(s), soliciting award sponsorship, and executing the award(s). The committee shall follow the guidelines set forth in the leadership manual. The Committee is also responsible for establishing criteria for and determining recipients of distinguished lifetime achievement awards to the profession as well as emeritus status in the Society. The Committee Chairperson shall prepare and submit an interim and a final report to the Executive Director two weeks prior to the mid-year Board meeting and the Annual meeting, respectively.
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Co-Chairperson Telephone: (972) 860-1680 Fax: (972) 860-1681 |
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Board Liaison Telephone: (510) 832-2583 Fax: (510) 839-8642 |
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Co-Chairperson Telephone: (310) 927-5879 Fax: (310) 372-8105 |