John Kaplan (1929November 25, 1989) was a

legal scholar Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

social scientist Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of socie ...

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...

advocate, popular law professor, and author. He was a leading authority in the field of

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 ...

, and was widely known for his legal analyses of some of the deepest social problems in the United States. He was known for his work linking sociological research with legal policies, and limiting academic legal theory with real-world sociological data. He was an advocate for ending criminal

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

s on private behavior such as drug use, arguing that these laws only made any problems worse.

Education and career

Kaplan received a bachelor of science degree in physics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, then worked in a Naval research lab for several years. He returned to Harvard to attend Law School, was a member of the

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 ...

, and graduated

magna 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 So ...

. In 1954–5, after his law degree, he served as

law clerk A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person, generally someone who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant ...

for US Supreme Court Justice Thomas C. Clark, then studied criminology in

Vienna, Austria en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. He practiced as a criminal defense attorney then worked in the

Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a v ...

in Illinois as a Special U.S. Attorney, trying tax fraud cases, commenting "it was my method of squaring things with poor people." He then moved to work as an

Assistant United States Attorney An assistant United States attorney (AUSA) is an official career civil service position in the U.S. Department of Justice composed of lawyers working under the U.S. Attorney of each U.S. federal judicial district. They represent the federal gove ...

in the

Northern District of California The United States District Court for the Northern District of California (in case citations, N.D. Cal.) is the federal United States district court whose jurisdiction comprises the following counties of California: Alameda, Contra Costa, De ...

, later commenting on this work, "I tried to discourage guilty pleas then, because I loved to try cases." In 1962, he began teaching law at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

, then at

University of California Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

. In 1965, he joined the law faculty at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, where he became the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law. He wrote notable text books on the legal theory of evidence and on criminal law, as well as publishing both scholarly works and books on social justice.

Publications

Scholarly work

Kaplan's ''Decision Theory and the Factfinding Process'' (1968) applies

decision theory Decision theory (or the theory of choice; not to be confused with choice theory) is a branch of applied probability theory concerned with the theory of making decisions based on assigning probabilities to various factors and assigning numerical ...

to the judicial factfinding process, not with the end of providing a rigorous mathematical process to make decisions of fact, which he considered unrealistic, but to provide insights into the overall decision process in legal system.

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

Justice William J. Brennan Jr. recommended this article in a footnote of ''

In re Winship ''In re Winship'', 397 U.S. 358 (1970), was a United States Supreme Court decision that held that "the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute ...

'', as an "interesting analysis" of the factfinding process. In ''Of Babies and Bathwater'' (1977), Kaplan asserted that jurors mistrust the accuracy of press reports, and assumed their own knowledge of the facts of the case was superior to that of any newspaper reporter. ''The Problem of Capital Punishment'' (1983) was cited by United States Supreme Court Justice

Byron White Byron "Whizzer" Raymond White (June 8, 1917 April 15, 2002) was an American professional football player and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1962 until his retirement in 1993. Born and raised in Color ...

in '' Pulley v. Harris'', as neatly summarizing the problem in which defendants who are charged and convicted for similar crimes often receive vastly different sentences.

Books

His 1972 textbook,''Criminal Justice'' was adopted at more than 100 colleges nationally. In ''The Hardest Drug: Heroin and Public Policy'' (1983), he wrote that drug policies "are about as good as we're going to get. .. Heroin maintenance won't work and free availability would be even worse", noting that "increased law enforcement may not prove very cost-effective. You could send two prisoners to Stanford for the cost of sending one to prison."

Teaching

Kaplan's colleagues described him as a "spellbinding" and "legendary" teacher, who was "fast on his feet, funny and got right to the point". He was one of the most popular teachers at Stanford University, and taught one its most popular classes - ''The Criminal Law and the Criminal System'', which filled the largest lecture hall on campus and used an innovative (for its time) method of handling overflow by broadcasting the class on the campus radio station. The student press wrote, "hundreds of students in his undergraduate and law school classes have loved him for are his humorous and informative lectures, his caring and open attitude, and his lively personality in and out of class." He received the

John Bingham Hurlbut Award John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

for teaching excellence.

Social science and activism

Over his career, Kaplan served on several government committees, advising on drug laws, criminal law, and social issues. As one of the major social scientists of criminal law, he was known as demanding that legal theory confront the hard facts produced by criminological research. He was known as a "hard-nosed policy analyst" and "one of a few legal academics who also had an expertise in policy analysis without ideological preconceptions." In 1985, Stanford University charged Kaplan with investigating allegations of

police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...

, after a Stanford student was physically injured after being arrested by campus law enforcement officials, who used

pain compliance holds A grappling hold, commonly referred to simply as a hold that in Japanese is referred to as ''katame-waza'' ( "grappling technique"), is any specific grappling, wrestling, judo, or other martial art grip that is applied to an opponent. Grapplin ...

on students using

passive resistance Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, const ...

to protest Stanford investment in companies doing business in

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. Kaplan's report was critical of the police hold method, and commended campus security for rapidly changing methods for handling limp protesters. Criticism of the investigation included that the report was prepared prior to meeting with student eyewitnesses, and that when Kaplan and the head of campus police met with student eye-witnesses, the students were not allowed to ask questions at the meeting or see a copy of the report prior to the meeting. In 1989, he chaired the Faculty Senate at Stanford University.

Personality

Kaplan was known to his colleagues, students, and community for his academic brilliance, teaching skills, activist concern for others, high energy level, and sense of humor. He often appeared in the media, where he was described as "pithy, humorous, and incisive" and as having a "quick wit and exhaustive knowledge of criminal law. Harvard law professor

James Q. Wilson James Quinn Wilson (May 27, 1931 – March 2, 2012) was an American political scientist and an authority on public administration. Most of his career was spent as a professor at UCLA and Harvard University. He was the chairman of the Council of A ...

said Kaplan was "one of the ablest and brightest people I know in the field of criminal justice", and additionally was one of the best "conversationalists" he knew. Colleague and Stanford Law School Dean

Paul Brest Paul Brest (born 1940) is an American scholar of constitutional law, a former president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and a former dean of Stanford Law School. He is an influential theorist on the role of non-profit organizations i ...

described him, as "a delight and an education, and sometimes a challenge to get words in edgewise." Kaplan lectured to full audiences at Stanford's largest lecture halls with hyperactive and gesticulating lecture style:

Kaplan appears to move constantly, walking casually back and forth across the stage or in the aisles ... rolling or pushing up the sleeves of his white shirt, and putting his hands in his pockets ... punctuating his lectures with emphatic gestures, pantomiming questions, answers and comments while speaking them, and immediately communicating his opinion of any issue.

Sense of humor

Kaplan was known for "a crackling wit and a boisterous sense of humor." A former student described Kaplan as "a brilliant, often outrageous teacher, who employed humor in an attempt to drive the law into our not always receptive minds." His colleague commented that Kaplan provided "the sense of irreverence that we desperately need around the law school." His sense of self-deprecating humor was described as being of the "New York type" in the Stanford law school newspaper, comparing Kaplan to comedic film director

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

. The student press described him as being the worst dresser on campus, and having a desk littered with books, manuscripts, messages, tape recorders, and professorial odds and ends ... and with Kaplan's feet, which he hastily removed and started putting some papers in the wastebasket. Kaplan replied, ''"I'm usually a complete slob ... my filing system is to throw things out"'' and ''"Oh, well, no one has ever loved me for my looks"''. When asked to teach an antitrust class in which he had no expertise, prior to rapidly becoming an expert on the subject, he wrote in the course guide description, ''"This course will have something to do with antitrust law whatever that is."'' He once broadcast his Criminal Law mid-term like a baseball game over the campus radio station, with "a color commentator, pre-exam warm-up, and interviews with students and TA's after the event". He was fond of

practical joke A practical joke, or prank, is a mischievous trick played on someone, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.Marsh, Moira. 2015. ''Practically Joking''. Logan: Utah State University Press. ...

s. His colleagues posthumously added this footnote to their criminal Law casebook they coauthored with Kaplan:

The late Prof. John Kaplan was fond of the following classroom hypothetical nvolving_attempt,_ nvolving_attempt,_recklessness_(law)">recklessness,_and_intent.html" ;"title="recklessness_(law).html" ;"title="attempt.html" ;"title="nvolving attempt">nvolving attempt, recklessness (law)">recklessness, and intent">recklessness_(law).html" ;"title="attempt.html" ;"title="nvolving attempt">nvolving attempt, recklessness (law)">recklessness, and intent]: A very bad person goes to the roof of a high-rise building, dragging a very heavy potted plant. He pushes the plant over the edge and down onto a crowded noontime street, but, by miraculous chance, it does not hit any person. Of what is he guilty? (Extra credit was given to anyone answering 'littering'.)

Personal life

Kaplan was born in New York City to Mr. Kaplan and Dorothy Kaplan. He married Elizabeth Kaplan and they fathered three children in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

, Carolyn Springer Kaplan, Jonathan Edward Kaplan, and Jessica Baron Kaplan. He died of cancer after aggressively trying to fight it, undergoing experimental therapy to treat the brain tumor that eventually killed him. Doctors infected Kaplan with a bacterium, in conjunction with other chemicals, to stimulate his immune system in an effort to fight off the cancerous cells, based on experiments on mice showing an 80 percent elimination of brain tumors for a type of tumor that was a different from Kaplan's. Colleague Robert Weisberg commented that Kaplan's motives for undergoing experimental treatment derived from his "selfless interest in seeing whether this therapy might work" for others.

Selected publications

before 1970

Suits Against Unincorporated Associations Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (1954)

Search and Seizure: A No-Man's Land in the Criminal Law (1961)

Segregation Litigation and the Schools-Part I: The New Rochelle Experience (1963)

Segregation Litigation and the Schools-Part II: The General Northern Problem (1963)

Segregation Litigation and the Schools-Part III: The Gary Litigation (1964)

Prosecutorial Discretion-A Comment (1965)
* The Trial of Jack Ruby (1965)
Equal Justice in an Unequal World: Equality for the Negro-The Problem of Special Treatment (1966)

"The Assassins." Reviews of ''Rush to Judgment'' by Mark Lane; ''Inquest'' by Edward Jay Epstein; ''Whitewash: The Report on the Warren Report'' by Harold Weisberg; ''The Oswald Affair'' by Léo Sauvage; ''The Second Oswald'' by Richard H. Popkin.
''

Stanford Law Review The ''Stanford Law Review'' (SLR) is a legal journal produced independently by Stanford Law School students. The journal was established in 1948 with future U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher as its first president. The review produces six ...

'', Vol. 19, No. 5, 1967, pp. 1110–1151. .
Decision Theory and the Factfinding Process (1968)