Professor Adele Bernhard and the Law School’s Post-Conviction Project won a significant victory in the Appellate Division at the end of December when the court unanimously reversed a Suffolk County judge and ordered DNA testing in a murder case that might prove their client's innocence. The Suffolk County District Attorney had resisted the testing. Professor Bernhard argued the appeal in People v. Keith Bush. She was assisted on the brief by Pace Law students Aharon Diaz, Nick Weiler, Danielle Brown, and Sidney Lister. The appellate court pointed out that male tissue scrapings underneath the fingernails of the murder victim might identify the killer; DNA genetic profiling was unavailable at the time the defendant was convicted. Professor Bernhard also presented at the national conference of the American Society of Criminology on a panel making connections between law and sociology. Professor Bernhard is interested in how society compensates individuals who were wrongly convicted and later exonerated. See her recent quote in the media on this very topic here.

The Center for Excellence in Law Teaching (CELT) at Albany Law School recently accepted the proposal of Professor Gary Munneke and Assistant Dean Rachel Littman to present at the CELT inaugural conference “Setting and Assessing Learning Objectives from Day One” on March 30, 2012.  The topic of their presentation will be “Developing a Learning Objectives Rubric for Law Students and Graduates.”

Recently Professor Darren Rosenblum presented his current work on sex equality in two venues:  Parité et Gouvernance, a debate with Veronique Moralie hosted by the Chaire Ethique de l’Université Cergy Pontoise, Paris, France, on December 1, and Compensation et Ethique, une Perspective des Etats Unis, at a conference held by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development and Université de Cergy-Pontoise, Paris, France, on November 21. Professor Rosenblum also presented a U.S. perspective on sexual orientation law at a conference on the recognition of same-sex relationships at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (November 19) and discussed LGBT parenting before the University of Paris student union. While in Paris as a Fulbright Research Scholar, Professor Rosenblum has guest taught at the law schools of Cergy Pontoise, Sorbonne (Paris I), Paris Sud (Paris 11), and at his host institution, the University of Versailles St. Quentin en Yvelines. Professor Rosenblum presented his work on sex equality and corporate governance at a conference on European Legal Culture at Trinity College, Oxford, on December 16.

Professor Merril Sobie spent the day of December 1 in Albany at the NYSBA Center attending a public hearing for the New York Family Law Task Force. Professor Sobie is the Task Force’s official reporter. The Task Force is charged with revising family court laws.