Caren Morrison
Professor of Law Center for Access to Justice- Education
J.D., Columbia Law School
Diploma in Journalism, Graduate Centre for Journalism, The City University, London, England
B.A., Brown University
- Specializations
Clinical & Experiential Education
Criminal Law & Procedure
- Biography
Caren Myers Morrison, professor of law, teaches evidence, criminal procedure, and law & literature. She served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York from 2001 to 2006, where she prosecuted international narcotics traffickers and organized crime. Her research focuses on police violence, domestic homicide, and the place of women in the common law.
Morrison’s most recent article, “The State Courts Don't Have Time for Your Crackpot Antiquarianism: A Decade of Domestic Homicides since Giles v. California," published in the Cornell Law Review, examines 114 cases of domestic homicide after the new Giles standard signaled that most victim’s words would be excluded from trial. The article argues that the suspicion with which courts have treated dead victims’ statements dovetails with myths about female conniving that have purchase to this day. Her previous articles have explored the semiotics of police video, moral injury and the police, the impact of the Internet on the functioning of the jury, and proposed ways of improving peremptory strikes in jury selection. Her articles have been published in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, the Vanderbilt Law Review, the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, the California Law Review Circuit, and the Columbia Law Review Sidebar.
Morrison graduated from Columbia Law School, where she was a James Kent Scholar (1996-97), a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar (1994-96), and a notes editor of the Columbia Law Review. After graduation, she clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Eugene H. Nickerson of the Eastern District of New York and Judge John M. Walker Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. From 2006 to 2009, she was acting assistant professor at New York University School of Law. Before law school, Morrison trained as a journalist at London’s City University and worked as freelance journalist in London for seven years.
- Publications
Book Chapters
Caren M. Morrison, The Supreme Court's 2009 Criminal Procedure Cases, in 16th Annual U.S. Supreme Court Update (ICLE 2009)
Articles
Caren M. Morrison, The State Courts Don't Have Time for Your Crackpot Antiquarianism: A Decade of Domestic Homicides Since Giles v. California, 106 Cornell L. Rev. 1539 (2021)
Caren Morrison, Private Actors, Corporate Data and National Security: What Assistance Do Tech Companies Owe Law Enforcement?, 26 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 407 (2017).
Caren Myers Morrison, Body Camera Obscura: The Semiotics of Police Video, 54 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 791 (2017).
Caren M. Morrison, Dr. Panopticon, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Drone, 27 J.C.R. & Econ. Dev. 747 (2015)
Caren Myers Morrison, Investigating Jurors on Social Media, 35 Pace L. Rev. 285 (2014).
Caren Morrison, Negotiating Peremptory Challenges, 104 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 1 (2014).
Caren Morrison, Beyond "Perfection": Can the Insights of Perfecting Criminal Markets Be Put to Practical Use?, 113 Colum. L. Rev. Sidebar 66 (2013).
Caren Morrison, Passwords, Profiles, and the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination: Facebook and the Fifth Amendment, 65 Ark. L. Rev. 133 (2012).
Caren Morrison, The Drug Dealer, the Narc, and the Very Tiny Constable: Reflections on United States v. Jones, 3 Calif. L. Rev. Circuit 113 (2012).
Caren Morrison, Foreword: Criminal Justice Responses to the Economic Crisis, 28 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 953 (2012).
Caren Morrison, Can the Jury Trial Survive Google?, Crim. Justice, Win. 2011, at 4.
Caren Morrison, Jury 2.0, 62 Hastings L.J. 1579 (2011).
Caren Morrison, et al., Cooperation and Plea Agreements - Professors and Practitioners, 79 Fordham L. Rev. 65 (2010).
Caren Morrison, Privacy, Accountability, and the Cooperating Defendant: Towards a New Role for Internet Access to Court Records, 62 Vand. L. Rev. 921 (2009).
Caren Morrison, Note, Encouraging Allocution at Capital Sentencing: A Proposal for Use Immunity, 97 Colum. L. Rev. 787 (1997).
Popular Press
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