FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Brian Gallini, associate dean and professor of law at the University of Arkansas, is available to comment on the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling Monday that teenagers sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment for murder must be given a chance to argue that they should be released from prison.
The Court’s decision expanded its 2012 ruling that struck down mandatory life terms without parole for juveniles and said it must be applied retroactively.
Gallini’s scholarship in part focuses on the Eighth Amendment – the section of the U.S. Constitution that addresses “cruel and unusual punishment” – juvenile sentencing and law-enforcement discretion issues in the context of interrogation methods, consent searches and profiling.
In “Equal Sentences for Unequal Participation: Should the Eighth Amendment Allow All Juvenile Murder Accomplices to Receive Life Without Parole?”, published in the Oregon Law Review, Gallini demonstrated that U.S. trial courts impose identical and harsh sentences on juvenile murder accomplices, regardless of the circumstances of the homicide or their degree of participation in the crime. This has occurred, Gallini argued, because the Court and the Eighth Amendment do not provide direction to lower courts on sentencing juvenile accomplices in murder cases.
Gallini received his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 2002. While at Michigan, he served as the Articles Editor on the Michigan Journal of International Law. After law school, Gallini served as a judicial clerk to the Honorable Robert W. Clifford on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. He later joined the Washington, D.C., office of Duane Morris LLP, where he practiced white-collar criminal defense.
Gallini left private practice in 2005 to clerk for the Honorable Richard Allen Griffin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Court. Before joining the University of Arkansas, Gallini taught for two years at the Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Gallini's legal commentary has appeared in numerous media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times.
CONTACTS: Brian Gallini, associate dean and professorSchool of Law479-575-6973, [email protected]
Matt McGowan, science and research communications officerUniversity Relations479-575-4246, [email protected]
RSS