MSU Law Faculty Recognized for Racial Justice Work

Professors Catherine Grosso and Barbara O’Brien, along with their partner-institution, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation (CDPL), are the recipients of 2021’s University Outreach & Engagement Distinguished Partnership Award for Community-Engaged Service for their project, “Racial Justice and the Administration of the Death Penalty.”

The annual Michigan State University Outreach and Engagement Awards honor faculty, students, and partners from across campus who work together for the benefit of their communities. Professors Grosso and O’Brien are also finalists for the MSU Community Engagement Scholarship Award, which is conferred each February in recognition of exemplary scholarship undertaken with a community partner.

“While some legal scholarship can seem abstract, Professors Grosso and O’Brien’s work changes lives and will have a long-term impact on the justice system,” said Interim Dean Melanie B. Jacobs. “As the United States grapples with issues of racial justice, their meticulous, principled work provides compelling context for these conversations. They are deeply deserving of this recognition from the MSU academic community, and it is an honor to call them colleagues.”

Professors O’Brien and Grosso’s ongoing death penalty work highlights disparities in the justice system. Professor O’Brien currently serves as editor of the highly influential National Registry of Exonerations and Professor Grosso is managing editor. As the most comprehensive collection of exoneration data ever compiled, the Registry informs the discourse on this topic and has been featured recently in wide-ranging outlets like The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight on HBO, and Pod Save the People. Professors Grosso and O’Brien are also working on an ongoing National Science Foundation-sponsored grant project that analyzes the ways in which stereotypes influence voir dire in capital cases.

Their partner-institution for “Racial Justice and the Administration of the Death Penalty” (and co-recipients of the award for Community-Engaged Service) is the Center for Death Penalty Litigation (CDPL), a non-profit law firm that represents people on death row, coordinates capital litigation across North Carolina, and serves as a clearinghouse for information on the death penalty in North Carolina. The CDPL advocates for the end of the death penalty in North Carolina and maintains that indigent defendants facing the death penalty deserve the same kind of high-quality representation available to the highest-paying clients.

Professor Grosso’s scholarship takes an interdisciplinary approach to the role of race and other extralegal factors in criminal investigations, trials, and the administration of capital punishment. Her recent work examines the persistent role of race in jury selection and in charging and sentencing decisions relating to capital punishment. She teaches criminal procedure, capital punishment law, a seminar on criminal juries, and remedies.

Professor O’Brien’s research applies empirical methodology to legal issues, such as identifying predictors of false convictions and understanding prosecutorial decision-making. Her current scholarship examines the role of race and other extralegal factors in criminal investigations, trials, and the administration of capital punishment. She teaches classes relating to criminal law and procedure.