Paul Delano Butler (born January 15, 1961) is an American lawyer, former prosecutor, and current

law professor A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

of Georgetown University Law Center. He is a leading

criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...

scholar, particularly in the area of race and jury nullification. Official Biography at the George Washington University Law School , 27 May 2009

Early life and education

Paul Butler was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he attended

St. Ignatius College Preparatory School Saint Ignatius College Prep is a selective private, coeducational Jesuit college-preparatory school located in the Near West Side neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The school was founded in Chicago in 1869 by Fr. Arnold Damen, S.J., a Dutch ...

. He received his B.A. degree ''

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' from Yale University and his J.D. degree from

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

Legal career

Butler clerked for the Honorable Mary Johnson Lowe of the

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York State. Two of these are in New York City: New Y ...

. He then joined the law firm of

Williams & Connolly Williams & Connolly LLP is an American law firm based in Washington, D.C. The firm was founded by trial lawyer Edward Bennett Williams in collaboration with Paul Connolly, a former student of his. Williams left the partnership of D.C. firm Hog ...

in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in

white collar White collar may refer to: * White-collar worker, a salaried professional or an educated worker who performs semi-professional office, administrative, and sales-coordination tasks, as opposed to a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor ...

criminal defense In the field of criminal law, there are a variety of conditions that will tend to negate elements of a crime (particularly the ''intent'' element), known as defenses. The label may be apt in jurisdictions where the ''accused'' may be assigned some ...

and civil litigation. Following his time in private practice, Butler served as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice, where his specialty was public corruption."One Angry Man", By Patricia Cohen, Staff Writer, Washington Post, May 30, 1997 While at the Department of Justice, Butler also served as a special assistant U.S. attorney, prosecuting drug and gun cases.

Academic career

Butler is currently the Albert Brick Professor in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, race relations law, and critical theory. His scholarship has been published in the ''

Yale Law Journal The ''Yale Law Journal'' (YLJ), known also as the ''Yale Law Review'', is a student-run law review affiliated with the Yale Law School. Published continuously since 1891, it is the most widely known of the eight law reviews published by students ...

'', ''

Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 ...

'', '' Stanford Law Review'', and '' UCLA Law Review''. He has authored chapters in several books, written a column for the '' Legal Times'', and published numerous op-ed articles, including in the '' Los Angeles Times'', '' The Washington Post'', and '' The Dallas Morning News''. He lectures regularly for the

ABA ABA may refer to: Businesses and organizations Broadcasting * Alabama Broadcasters Association, United States * Asahi Broadcasting Aomori, Japanese television station * Australian Broadcasting Authority Education * Académie des Beaux- ...

and the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

, and at colleges, law schools, and community organizations throughout the U.S. Butler was a regular contributor at BlackProf.com until its demise in 2009. He was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Service Award three times by the Georgetown Law graduating class and has been a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In 2003, he was elected to the

American Law Institute The American Law Institute (ALI) is a research and advocacy group of judges, lawyers, and legal scholars established in 1923 to promote the clarification and simplification of United States common law and its adaptation to changing social needs. ...

. In 2009, his first book, ''Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice'', was published by The New Press.

Publications

Books

* ''Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice'' (The New Press, 2010) * '' Chokehold: Policing Black Men'' (The New Press, 2017)

References

External links

Profile page at Georgetown University Law Center
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Butler, Paul American bloggers American legal scholars American legal writers Harvard Law School alumni Living people George Washington University Law School faculty 1961 births Jury nullification MSNBC people 21st-century American non-fiction writers University of Pennsylvania Law School faculty Georgetown University Law Center faculty