Bodiker Lecture on Criminal Justice

The David H. Bodiker Lecture on Criminal Justice honors the legacy of David Bodiker ’63 by promoting, improving, and advancing the highest level of academic and professional interest in protecting the constitutional rights of the defendant in the criminal justice system. 

This year's lecture, titled "Procedures Matter: Why Innocent Prisoners Don't Get Out on Technicalities," will be presented by Daniel S. Medwed, University Distinguished Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University School of Law.

Professor Medwed, a leading authority on criminal law, focuses his research and pro bono activities around the topic of wrongful convictions. His book, Barred: Why the Innocent Can’t Get Out of Prison (Hachette/Basic Books, 2022), which was named one of the “Best Fall Books” by Bloomberg in 2022, explores the range of procedural barriers that so often prevent innocent prisoners from obtaining exoneration He also co-authored the eighth edition of Criminal Procedure: Principles, Policies, and Perspectives (West Academic, 2023) and the second edition of Criminal Law: Problems, Statutes, and Cases (Carolina Academic Press, 2021) .

Professor Medwed is a founding member of the board of directors of the Innocence Network, a consortium of innocence projects throughout the world, and a former president of the board of directors of the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center. He currently serves on the board of the New England Innocence Project.

Professor Medwed was appointed to the rank of University Distinguished Professor in 2018, which is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a Northeastern faculty member. Over the course of his career, he has earned many teaching prizes, including a Teaching and Advising Award while serving as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, and students have selected him as their Faculty Commencement Speaker seven times.

Prior to joining Northeastern in 2012, Professor Medwed was professor of law at the University of Utah. He previously served as an instructor at Brooklyn Law School and helped oversee the school’s Second Look Program, where he worked with students to investigate and litigate innocence claims by New York state prisoners. 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.