Center for Interdisciplinary Law and Policy Studies

Distinguished Visiting Interdisciplinary Practitioners 2004-05

Larry A. Hammond
Osborn Maledon

Education
B.A., University of Texas
J.D., University of Texas

Larry Hammond, of Osborn Maledon in Phoenix, Arizona, visited the Center for Interdisciplinary Law and Policy Studies as a Visiting Interdisciplinary Practitioner in Residence. Mr. Hammond also serves as the Chair of the Arizona State Bar Indigent Defense Task Force, Chair of the Arizona Justice Project, and is the President of the American Judicature Society.

He has been a board member of the Arizona Capital Representation Project since its founding in the late 1980s, and his practice has regularly included death penalty defense. Mr. Hammond served as deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice during the Carter Administration. He served as an Assistant Watergate Special Prosecutor and was also a law clerk to Justices Powell and Black.

Monday, April 18, 2005
Mr. Hammond talked to students about public interest/public service from 12:15 to 1:00 p.m. in Room 245.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Mr. Hammond spoke on "The AJS Institute for Justice System Improvement: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Truth-Seeking" Tuesday, April 19 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. in the Faculty Lounge (314 Drinko Hall). A brief synopsis of his presentation is below.

Over 150 DNA exonerations have changed forever the focus of the debates over wrongful convictions. No longer do we ask whether our criminal justice system has produced convictions of innocent people. Instead, we are now asking much better questions that begin with questioning what can be done to reduce the risk of wrongful convictions in the future. The American Judicature Society (AJS) has made this one of its major programmatic initiatives in the last few years. Mr. Hammond will talk about some of the things that AJS has been doing and will describe the creation of an Institute that will bring an interdisciplinary approach to an assessment of ways to improve the truth-seeking function of our courts.

Thursday, April 21, 2005
Mr. Hammond discussed "The Saga of Youngblood v. Arizona and the Problem of Convicting the Innocent" on Thursday, April 21 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the OSU Moritz College Saxbe Auditorium. A brief synopsis of his lecture is below.

Larry Youngblood was convicted and sent to prison for a horrible crime that - due to the miracle of DNA - we now indisputably know he did not commit. He joins 160 others to have been exonerated by DNA, and his story begs the question, "How was he convicted in the first place?" The examination of that question leads to other constructive questions: "How can we reform our system of justice to reduce the possibility that errors of this type might occur in the future?" The story of the Youngblood case and the description of the post-mortem undertaken of that case by a team of Arizona lawyers may afford insights of interest in every criminal justice jurisdiction. Larry Hammond will talk about this and about some of the exciting changes that are occurring across the country as the result of the intense interest in examining failures in the criminal justice system.