Stanley Fisher
Professor of Law at Boston University
Schools
- Boston University
Links
Biography
Boston University
After starting out teaching law in Ethiopia, where his book Ethiopian Criminal Procedure still serves as major teaching text, Stanley Fisher came to Boston University in 1968. On sabbatical leaves, he practiced in the Boston area as a juvenile defender, a prosecutor and a public defender. These experiences provided the foundation for his teaching and research interests: prosecutorial ethics and miscarriages of justice. He has been particularly concerned with the effect of faulty eyewitness identification procedures and of police and prosecution suppression of exculpatory evidence on wrongful convictions.
“The DNA exonerations of more than 300 prisoners and the similar rash of exonerations of innocent men and women on America’s death rows have forced us to question our faith in the reliability of criminal convictions in our system,” he says. In 2000, Professor Fisher helped found the New England Innocence Project, on whose board he serves as trustee. NEIP uses law students and criminal defense lawyers to investigate and litigate claims of innocence by prisoners who might be exonerated by DNA testing. BU Law students have worked on NEIP cases as summer interns or under Professor Fisher’s supervision when enrolled in his Wrongful Convictions Clinic.
Widely published in the field of criminal procedure, Professor Fisher also has studied the criminal justice system in Great Britain. In April, 2002, the Illinois Governor’s Commission on Capital Punishment used his British research in framing recommendations for fundamental reform of police and prosecutorial conduct of investigations. At BU Law, Professor Fisher, who also has co-edited Massachusetts Criminal Practice, has taught courses in criminal procedure, criminal law and wrongful convictions. “I have been committed to teaching in the Criminal Clinic, as well, because I think it’s important that students learn through experience,” he says. In 2003, the Massachusetts public defender agency gave Professor Fisher the Thurgood Marshall Award for his service “as a champion of zealous defense of the poor.” In 2003-04, he taught law at the University of Asmara, in Eritrea.
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Cases
Egyptian dictatorship’s 529 death sentences
March 25, 2014
The Commentator David Rossman, School of Law Stanley Fisher, School of Law Yesterday, as reported everywhere, a judge in Upper Egypt took just two court sessions to sentence to death 529 supporters of Mohamed Morsi for the murder of a single police officer… Expert quotes: Rossman: “Selecting juries from the community gives ordinary people a say in how the […]
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Wrongly Convicted, Two Innocent Men Soon To Put A Price On Years Lost In Prison
March 2, 2014
Hartford Courant Stanley Fisher, School of Law They spent decades locked up for murders they did not commit. Now they are approaching the moment when they have to put a price on the years they lost in a prison cell… Expert quote: “Next to being put to death or physically tortured, wrongful incarceration is one […]
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What causes wrongful convictions? Lies, mistaken eyewitnesses top the list
May 21, 2012
Christian Science Monitor Stanley Fisher, School of Law False accusations, official misconduct, and mistaken eyewitness identity are the primary reasons behind hundreds of wrongful convictions nationwide over the past 23 years, legal researchers conclude in a new report… View article
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