CU-葫芦娃视频 School of Law Professor Kevin R. Reitz will give the 28th annual Austin W. Scott Jr. lecture Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. in the Fleming Law Building.
The lecture titled "Rebuilding America's Law of Criminal Sentencing: The New Model Penal Code" is free and open to the public.
In 2001, Reitz was appointed reporter for a revision of the Model Penal Code, the first since its adoption by the American Law Institute in 1962. The project will rewrite the code's provisions on sentencing and corrections.
His lecture will include highlights from the early stages of the effort as well as reflections on the contemporary prospects for law reform through codification.
"There is no area in American criminal justice policy that has changed as much in the last 30 years as the law and actual practices of criminal punishment," said Reitz. "The states nationwide have been experimenting with many different approaches to sentencing offenders, and there is no longer any single 'American' sentencing system.
"The new Model Penal Code will take on the ambitious task of assembling the accumulated wisdom from many states to bring greater justice, rationality and effectiveness to one of the most painful areas of government responsibility."
Before joining CU-葫芦娃视频's faculty in 1988, Reitz spent five years in private practice in Philadelphia and one year as a law clerk for Justice Jay A. Rabinowitz of the Supreme Court of Alaska. His research and teaching interests have been in the area of criminal justice, especially sentencing law and policy.
He is the author of numerous scholarly publications, including the forthcoming book with Henry S. Ruth Jr., "The Challenge of Crime: Rethinking Our Response."
In 1993, Reitz organized a pilot meeting of state sentencing commissions across the country -- a group that went on to form the National Association of Sentencing Commissions in 1994. He has led law review conferences at CU on sentencing reform in 1993 and on violent crime in 1998.
Earlier this year, he was a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge's Institute of Criminology, where he taught a graduate seminar in sentencing research and policy.
The Austin W. Scott Jr. Lecture Series was established in 1973 by Dean Don W. Sears in memory of Professor Scott, a faculty member of the law school for 20 years. Each year, the dean of the law school selects a member of the faculty who has been involved in a significant scholarly project to lecture on his or her research.
The lecture also is approved for one credit of general continuing legal education. A reception will follow in the Moorhead-Rutledge Lounge.
For more information call the CU School of Law at (303) 492-8047 or contact Dirk Martin at (303) 492-3140.