Regent Law News

It all started eight years ago with a videotaped lecture he gave to prospective law students. Don’t Talk to the Police ” – his lecture on the Fifth Amendment—talk dozens of times before. Regent University School of Law professor James Duane had given his “ Professor James Duane. “I’d been doing this thing for years, but I’d never taped any of them,” said Duane. But this time, he made an exception: He invited his current students to join in on the lecture. And when a few students couldn’t make it to the class in real-time, he put it on Regent’s website and sent it to 40-some students via email. A week later, he received a phone call from the head of the university’s IT department. “She said, ‘Jim, we’ve got a problem over here,” said Duane. The video had attracted such a high volume of viewers that the school’s server was unable to handle it. Duane agreed to release t...

Regent University School of Law Professor James Duane has accepted an invitation to serve as a faculty associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society for the 2013-14 academic year. Read the press release here . Duane will co-teach a course at Harvard Law School in the fall semester called “The American Jury,” and will assist in the creation of a website intended to communicate information to the American public about the theory and operation of the jury trial process. “I am excited to work with others who share my passion for using the Internet and other forms of mass media to reach beyond the severe limitations of traditional legal scholarship,” Professor Duane says. “I am looking forward to collaborating with some of the finest minds in legal education.” Founded in 1996, the Berkman Center is dedicated to better understanding and developing cyberspace. Its staff includes students, fellows, faculty, virtual architects, entrepreneurs and lawyers....

Professor James Duane’s hit lecture “ Don’t Talk to the Police ” has received more than 3.6 million views on YouTube, a figure that does not include views for other versions floating around on the Internet, one of which has more than 2.2 million hits. Now, the lecture has been acknowledged on primetime television. In “ Conventions ,” a Feb. 26, 2014 episode of the NBC drama Chicago P.D. , a criminal suspect requests to remain silent under protection of the Fifth Amendment and references the popular lecture. At approximately 16:50 of the episode, the suspect says, “Do you get the Internet here? Cause there’s this great video on YouTube by this law professor, and he’s very articulate. And he makes a very compelling and convincing argument. It’s called ‘Don’t Talk to the Cops.’” In the episode, the police don’t respect the suspect’s rights, but Professor Duane says that not talking to the police or any government agent until an attorney is present is a serious matter. “Of...

In 2003, Professor James Duane published The Virginia Supreme Court Takes a Big Bite Out of the Privilege for Marital Communications, 29 The Virginia Bar Association News Journal 8 (March 2003). His article gained the attention of a delegate in Virginia’s General Assembly, who arranged for Professor Duane to be appointed to serve on a committee that drafted a new version of Virginia’s law on marital privileges. His proposal was adopted by the legislature in 2005, and in December of 2007, that amendment directly affected the outcome of Carpenter v. Commonwealth, 654 S.E.2d 345 (Va. Ct. App. 2007). In Carpenter, the defendant confessed to his wife that he had raped their teenage daughter. At his later trial, the wife wished to testify against him about that confession. Under the version of Virginia’s marital privilege in place at the time of his confession, his wife would not have been allowed to reveal what he told her, not even if she wished to do so. However, by the time of the trial...

Students in Regent University School of Law's two-year juris doctorate (J.D.) program may benefit in more ways than just receiving quality legal education in less time. The program also gets them into court sooner. During their summer month of legal training, students in the Federal Laws of Evidence class witnessed the tools they've learned in the classroom unfold in the Federal Court in Norfolk, Va. In July, Regent Law professor James Duane (pictured)  was appointed by the court to represent a defendant in an alleged drug trafficking case. Since many aspects of the case directly related to what Duane has been teaching his students throughout the summer, he invited them to watch the arguments unfold outside of the context of books. "The students benefited from the opportunity to see these classroom concepts being actually argued, considered and decided by the judge in real time," said Duane. "It gave them an available opportunity to see these issues fleshed...

Professor James Duane  was interviewed on MSNBC Thursday, May 23, regarding whether or not IRS official Lois Learner should be permitted to plead the Fifth Amendment in the congressional investigation. Duane's comments regarding the Fifth Amendment were also included in this Wednesday, May 22, online edition of New York Magazine , and articles in The Week , Politico and Yahoo! News on Thursday, May 23. Learn more about Professor Duane . 

Law Librarian Margaret Christiansen had an article published in Spectrum, the magazine of the American Association of Law Libraries, regarding recent renovations to Regent's Law Library. Law Professor James Duane has been active recently. After passing the Virginia Bar in February, Duane will soon add this association to his state bar admissions. This coming fall, in addition to his duties at Regent Law, Professor Duane will enjoy the honor of being a visiting professor at William & Mary Law School. Lastly, in the Spring 2009 issue of the Virginia Bar Association News Journal, Duane published "She Told Me She Was Scared of Him": The Admissibility of Hearsay Evidence that a Murder Victim Feared the Accused. This article addresses the Virginia Supreme Court ruling in Clay v. Commonwealth* , focusing on the delicacy of using the state of mind exception to the hearsay rule in murder cases. *33 Va.App. 96, 531 S.E.2d 623 (Va. Ct. App.2000) (en banc), affirmed, 262 Va. 25...

Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and the right to due process: Regent University School of Law (LAW), Roberson School of Government (RSG) and College of Arts & Sciences (CAS) explored the Fifth Amendment promised to citizens in the United States Constitution on Monday, September 18. Each year, Regent celebrates the nationwide observance of “Constitution Day,” a day commemorating the signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787. To commemorate this year, LAW professor James Duane and Hampton Commonwealth’s Attorney Anton Bell presented their perspectives on “Finding Common Ground for Criminal Justice: Exploring the Fifth Amendment.” Duane spelled out his perspective on the Fifth Amendment from his recently published book that explores cases in which innocent parties have self-incriminated in criminal cases due to a lack of proper “lawyering up” before talking to police. You Have the Right to Remain Innocent: What Police Officers Tell Their Children About t...

Regent University's School of Law Faculty members willingly share their knowledge and expertise beyond the classroom to spark scholarly debate and advance the practice of law. Their latest endeavors include the following. In December of 2015, Professor James Duane published a short essay, "The Extraordinary Trajectory of Griffin v. California: The Aftermath of Playing Fifty Years of Scrabble with the Fifth Amendment," with Stanford’s online Criminal Law Journal , available here on SSRN .  Connected to that piece and another article by Professor Duane on Fifth Amendment privileges ( view here ), this 3-minute video had been online for only two days and was viewed almost 5 million times.  It has now been viewed more than 8.5 million times.  Furthermore, this story at The Blaze provides a nice summary of the synergy of these events, all from scholarship and teaching well integrated.  This has made a great increase in our SSRN downloads as you can see from the right...

When The Green Bag , a journal known for featuring humorous legal articles, published “ The Proper Pronunciation of Certiorari: The Supreme Court’s Surprising Six-Way Split ,” Professor James Duane didn’t expect major legal news outlets to make his article headline news. The article uncovers inconsistencies in the pronunciation of “certiorari,” an order that allows a higher court to request a lower court’s records. The confusion is a classic case of poh-tay-toh/poh-tah-toh: there seems to be more than one way to say it, and no one has standardized the pronunciation. When researching, Professor Duane consulted legal dictionaries, but he only found inconsistencies. Then he turned to recordings of 13 modern Supreme Court justices speaking in court. Ideally, to save face, a lawyer should mimic the Supreme Court justices’ pronunciation, but it turns out that their pronunciations are inconsistent too. The article has gone viral in the legal world. It was the topic of several National...

One of Regent University’s distinctive characteristics is the camaraderie that occurs among faculty, staff, and students in pursuit of scholarship and Christian community. On May 17, the University Library hosted their second biannual spotlight on faculty scholarship in the Library Gallery. Among these honored authors was Professor James Duane from the School of Law. Duane had the opportunity to share some highlights and stories from his book, You Have the Right to Remain Innocent, which was written and published following his classroom lecture, “Do Not Talk to the Police,” that went viral on YouTube, and now has over 2 million views. Duane was a humorous speaker, bringing laughter to the room, but he emphasized his purpose in writing and speaking about this book: “The Lord is not pleased with those who falsely accuse the innocent by ways of deceit, and I think light needs to be shed on this subject. Young and innocent people are getting falsely convicted and imprisoned more than ...

Regent University's School of Law Faculty members willingly share their knowledge and expertise beyond the classroom to spark scholarly debate and advance the practice of law. They have been busy this past summer. Here’s a brief update on some of their scholarly activities. Associate Professor Gloria Whittico was part of a panel in May with the National Consortium on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in Courts .   She also presented her freedom suits talk at the National Underground Railroad conference held in Hilton Head, SC.  Her work was very well-received.  That talk was largely derived from her work at "' A Woman's Pride and a Mother's Love' the Missouri Freedom Suits and the Lengths and Limits of Justice" and "' If Past Is Prologue': Toward the Development of a New 'Freedom Suit' for the Remediation of Foster Care Disproportionalities Among African-American Children ." Associate Professor Whittico also traveled to Drake Law...

The U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform recently cited Professor James Duane’s public statements on whether IRS official Lois Lerner had waived her Fifth Amendment rights when she appeared before that Committee. Read Duane’s official statement to the Committee here .

A professor of law and a constitutional law fellow at Regent University School of Law are working together on an ongoing study of criminal justice issues to identify aspects of the criminal justice system that are most deserving of possible reform. The team has put forward several recommendations for further consideration, including pretrial detention reform, reassessing mandatory minimum sentencing, and ensuring that prisoners are adequately prepared to re-enter society as productive citizens. “Public safety should always be the paramount consideration when evaluating possible reforms to our criminal justice system,” said Mark Martin, former Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and dean of Regent Law. But, according to Martin, “since very few criminal defendants serve sentences of life in prison, we must also be concerned about equipping prisoners to function in society after their active sentences have been completed.” Professor James Duane, a Regent Law professor who ha...

On Monday, March 29, Professor James Duane and the students in the Honors Section of Civil Procedure at Regent Law School were joined by a special guest speaker: the Honorable Rowan D. Wilson, Associate Judge on the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state. Judge Wilson and Prof. Duane in front of a photo taken at the copy center for their brief for a moot court competition. Judge Wilson spoke with students and answered questions concerning the subject of pretrial discovery and then shared some more general comments about civil procedures.    Judge Wilson was recently appointed to the court after a long and distinguished career in the litigation department of Cravath, Swain & Moore in New York City. He and Professor Duane were roommates in college and classmates in law school.

Professor   Kenneth Ching  presented his article, " Justice and Harsh Results ," at the KCON9 Conference in Miami, which was held February 21 and 22. Professor   James Duane's  article, " Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Pointless Remand ," was published in the  Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law  and may be available on SSRN soon. Professor Duane was also quoted in "Newport News: Juror selection in capital cases can be more difficult," a  Daily Press  article regarding jury selection in the John Moses Ragin trial. Professor  Duane ’s hit lecture “ Don’t Talk to the Police ” has received more than 3.6 million views on YouTube, a figure that does not include views for other versions floating around on the Internet, one of which has more than 2.2 million hits. Now, the lecture has been acknowledged on primetime television. In “ Conventions ,” a February 26, 2014 episode of the NBC drama Chicago P.D., a criminal suspect requests to...

Regent University's School of Law Faculty members willingly share their knowledge and expertise beyond the classroom to spark scholarly debate and advance the practice of law. Their latest endeavors include the following. Associate Dean Lynne Marie Kohm, Professors James Duane, Natt Gantt and Ben Madison, and Associate Professor Kathleen McKee presented various topics at the National Christian Legal Society Convention in Washington, D.C. October 20-24.  Assistant Professor Tessa Dysart spoke at the student Federalist Society chapters at Concordia Law School in Boise, Idaho on Oct. 13, and at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon on Oct. 20.  These presentations were largely based on her articles: The Origination Clause, the Affordable Care Act, and Indirect Constitutional Violations , and The Protected Innocence Initiative: Building Protective State Law Regimes for America’s Sex-Trafficked Children . Associate Professor Mike Schutt was the keynote speaker at ...

Judge Ken Starr, J.D., Regent University’s newest senior lecturing fellow for the School of Law, spoke to a packed house on Tuesday, January 28, in a premier event hosted by the Federalist Society on Regent’s Virginia Beach campus. Law students, members of the local community and honored guests, including Bob McDonnell, former governor of Virginia and Regent Law alumnus, were in attendance. Starr, who argued 36 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, has had a distinguished career in academia, public service and the law. He served as U.S. Solicitor General, United States Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit, Counselor and Chief of Staff to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith, and law clerk to both Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and to Fifth Circuit Judge David W. Dyer. He was appointed to serve as Independent Counsel for five investigations, including Whitewater. He also served as president and chancellor of Baylor University and dean of the Pepperdine School of ...

Law Professor Jim Duane was interviewed in this Forbes.com article about the merits of actress Lindsay Lohan's lawsuit against E-trade.

Regent University's School of Law Faculty members willingly share their knowledge and expertise beyond the classroom to spark scholarly debate and advance the practice of law. Their latest endeavors include the following. Professor Eric DeGroff attended and presented at the Representation in Mediation Competition Conference, spending the first two days of his time at the conference in New York last week helping to run this competition.  He was also appointed to serve as the lead co-chair for this ABA committee throughout the next year.  On the final day of the conference, Proffesor DeGroff presented on a panel for a CLE program at the Legal Educators’ Colloquium.  To learn more about his research in this area, see his most downloaded article: Training Tomorrow's Lawyers: What Empirical Research Can Tell Us About the Effect of Law School Pedagogy on Law Student Learning Styles . Professor Tom Folsom presented and participated in a debate at Faulkner Law School, on A...