AOI: Criminal Law
23 results
In Practice Winter 2024-2025
Nina Ruvinsky, ’13: Historic Fraud in a Nascent Market
When fraud charges against Sam Bankman-Fried jolted the financial world in December 2022, it capped several frenetic weeks of work for Nina Ruvinsky, ’13. She and her colleagues at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, in parallel with counterparts at the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Securities Exchange Commission, had brought a complex, first-of-its-kind case, which involved more than $8 billion stolen from Bankman-Fried’s FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
Features
Flawed Facial Recognition Technology Leads to Wrongful Arrest and Historic Settlement
The Law School’s Civil Rights Litigation Initiative worked on behalf of a Michigan man falsely arrested for a crime based on flawed facial recognition technology. A first-of-its-kind settlement achieves the nation’s strongest police department policies and practices constraining law enforcement’s use of the technology.
Features Summer 2024
Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit, ’10, and Professor J.J. Prescott Team Up on Transparency Project to Study Racial Disparities in Legal System
Even before he was elected Washtenaw County prosecutor in 2020, Eli Savit vowed to examine racial disparities in the county’s legal system. Led by Savit and Professor J.J. Prescott, the Prosecutor Transparency Project has released its analysis—and it hopes to serve as a model for similar efforts elsewhere.
Features Spring/Summer 2023
Jeff Titus Celebrates Life (on the) Outside
Titus, a Michigan Innocence Clinic client, was exonerated and released from prison in February. He was convicted in 2002 of killing two deer hunters in a state game area in the southeast corner of Kalamazoo County, Michigan.
In Practice Spring/Summer 2023
Nadia Shihata, ’03: The Women Who Finally Stopped R. Kelly
Nadia Shihata, ’03, had taken down drug dealers, an Albanian crime boss, and other nefarious characters. This time, she and a team of prosecutors were leveling charges against Robert “R.” Kelly, an R&B superstar.
In Practice Spring/Summer 2023
Christopher Perras, ’11: Hate on Trial
Christopher Perras, ’11, specializes in prosecuting hate crimes as a special litigation counsel in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice.
Class Note Fall 2015
Geeti Faramarzi, LLM ’13: Assisting with Australian Inquest into 2014 Lindt Café Siege
Long before American television viewers awoke to reports of a suspected terrorist attack in Australia, Geeti Faramarzi, LLM ’13, was watching the chaotic scene unfold live outside her Sydney office. “I was told that an armed robbery was taking place next door at the Lindt Café,” recalls Faramarzi, a solicitor at the Office of the State Coroner of New South Wales (NSW).
Briefs
News in Brief: Winter 2022
In-person classes and activities resume | Professor Richard Primus testifies on DC statehood | "Hell raising before finals” | and more...
In Practice
From Pizzagate to Private Practice: Navigating Cybercrimes and Cybersecurity
Demian Ahn, ’03, worked at the intersection of radicalized online spaces and violent behavior during his time as an assistant US attorney.
In Practice Fall 2022
Litigating Death Row: A Long Road of Loss
For 16 years, Jodi Lopez, ’03, fought to save Matthew Reeves’s life—and twice his life was spared. But the hard-fought victories that Lopez, Ben Friedman, ’13, and others won on Reeves’s behalf were reversed by the US Supreme Court. For Lopez and Friedman, the case raises salient due process questions that warrant examination of and discussion about the American justice system.