Criminal Justice Lecture

Hip Hop Culture: Lessons in Injustice?

a Lecture by George Washington University Law Professor Paul Butler

April 16; 5:00 p.m.

Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Moot Court Room

One Free CLE Credit

What can criminal prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys learn from Hip Hop? Does Hip Hop culture teach us something about punishment and the nature of criminal behavior? And might it expose profound injustice at the core of the criminal justice system?

George Washington University Law Professor Paul Butler believes that Hip Hop has lessons to teach about developing "a theory of punishment that is coherent, enhances public safety, and treats every human being with respect." On April 16 at 5:00 p.m., he will discuss his conclusions in a free public lecture, "Toward a Hip Hop Theory of Justice," in the Moot Court Room of the law school on East 18th and Euclid Avenue.

Professor Butler is the law school�s 2008 Friedman & Gilbert Criminal Justice Forum Lecturer. The Ohio Supreme Court has approved his lecture for one free hour of CLE credit.

Professor Butler is the Carville Dickinson Benson Research Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School. His undergraduate and law degrees are from Yale University.

Before beginning his teaching career, he served as a prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice. Among many provocative articles are When Judges Lie (and When They Should) in the Minnesota Law Review (2007), Rehnquist, Racism, and Race Jurisprudence in The George Washington Law Review" (2006) and Racially Based Jury Nullification: Black Power in the Criminal Justice System in The Yale Law Journal (1995). In Much Respect: Toward a Hip-Hop Theory of Punishment in the Stanford Law Review (2003), Professor Butler challenges Americans to study Hip Pop as political commentary�a powerful indictment of the criminal justice system "by the people who know it best."

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For more information visit www.law.csuohio.edu or call 216-687-6886