Criminal Law at SMU Dedman School of Law

SMU Dedman School of Law’s faculty includes some of the most impressive legal minds in the nation, focusing on criminal law, criminal procedure, and evidence. The faculty is distinguished by both the breadth of their expertise and the quality of their scholarship, shaping legal discourse not only through their influence in the United States Supreme Court and courts around the country, but also through their regular appearances and commentary in leading media outlets.

Faculty Scholarship

Laura Ginsberg Abelson:

The Fourth Amendment's Hidden Intrusion Doctrine, 111 Virginia Law Review (forthcoming 2025).
Reevaluating Felon-in-Possession Laws After Bruen and the War on Drugs, 15 UC Irvine Law Review (forthcoming 2025).
The Safety Valve Trap for Families, Federal Sentencing Reporter (forthcoming 2025).

Hillel J. Bavli:

Trial By Character, 75 Emory Law Journal (forthcoming 2025).
Stereotypes as Character Evidence, 77 Stanford Law Review 89 (2025).
Correcting Federal Rule of Evidence 404 to Clarify the Inadmissibility of Character Evidence, 92 Fordham Law Review 2441 (2024).

Pamela R. Metzger:

The Difference a D.A. Makes, 21 Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law 33 (2024) (with Shem Vinton and Victoria Smiegocki).

Anna Offit:

The Specter of Jury Nullification, UCLA Law Review (forthcoming).
Rethinking the Way we Judge Jurors, 93 George Washington Law Review (forthcoming).
Striking Jurors with Hardship Excuses, in Research Handbook on Jury Decision Making (forthcoming 2026) (with Valerie P. Hans and Nancy S. Marder, eds.).
Reimagining the Inclusive Jury, 57 UC Davis Law Review 2691 (2024).

Eric Ruben:

Location of Firearm Suicides in the United States, 2003-2021, JAMA Network Open (2025) (with Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, Rosanna Smart, & Camerin Rencken).
Judge-Scholar Collaboration and the Second Amendment, 78 SMU Law Review 397 (2025) (with Andrew Willinger).
Scientific Context, Suicide Prevention, and the Second Amendment After Bruen, 108 Minnesota Law Review 3121 (2024).
One Year Post-Bruen: An Empirical Assessment, 110 Virginia Law Review Online 20 (2024) (with Rosanna Smart & Ali Rowhani-Rahbar).

Meghan J. Ryan:

An Upside of Originalism: Jury Size, 116 Journal Criminal Law & Criminology (forthcoming 2026).
Time and Retribution, 89 Missouri Law Review 1251 (2025).
Ghost-Hunting in AI and the Law, 99 Tulane Law Review 121 (2024).
The Death of the Evolving Standards of Decency, 51 Florida State University Law Review 255 (2024).

Jenia Iontcheva Turner:

2024-25 Core Concepts in Criminal Law and Justice (forthcoming 2026) (with Kai Ambos, Stefanie Bock, Matthew Dyson, Alexander Heinze, Julian Roberts, Findlay Stark, Alec Walen & Thomas Weigend, eds.).
The American Criminal Trial Jury in an Era of Plea Bargaining, in Handbook of Criminal Procedure (forthcoming 2026) (with Michele Caianiello et al., eds.).
Rethinking Courtroom Presence in the Virtual Era, 101 Indiana Law Journal (forthcoming 2025).
Defense Use of Digital Discovery in Criminal Cases: A Quantitative Analysis, Justice Quarterly (forthcoming 2025) (with Michael Braun & Ronald F. Wright).
The Emerging Constitutional Law of Remote Criminal Justice, 59 Wake Forest Law Review 753 (2024).
Neglected Discovery, 73 Duke Law Journal 1173 (2024) (with Michael Braun & Ronald F. Wright).

Faculty Honors

Eric Ruben:

Appointed by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas to defend Texas laws restricting the carrying of firearms at bars, sporting events, and racetracks, Ziegenfuss v. Martin, 24-cv-01049 (N.D. Tex.).

Jenia Iontcheva Turner:

Named to the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules by Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts.
Elected as a member of the American Law Institute in September 2024.

Recent Citations by the Supreme Court of the United States, Federal Courts, and State Supreme Courts

Hillel J. Bavli, The Logic of Comparable-Case Guidance in the Determination of Awards for Pain and Suffering and Punitive Damages, 85 University of Cincinnati Law Review 1 (2017).

-cited by Senbroek v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 169 Fed. Cl. 418, 433 (Jan. 25, 2024).

Meghan J. Ryan, Taking Another Look at Second-Look Sentencing, 81 Brooklyn Law Review 149 (2015).

-cited by Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024) (Jackson, J., dissenting).

Meghan J. Ryan, The Privacy, Probability, and Political Pitfalls of Universal DNA Collection, 20 SMU Science and Technology Law Review (2017).

-cited by State v. Sharpe, 343 A.3d 408 (Conn. 2025) (D’Auria, J., concurring in part).

Eric Ruben, Originalism-by-Analogy and Second Amendment Adjudication, 133 Yale Law Journal 99 (2023) (with Joseph Blocher).

-cited by United States v. Rahimi, 144 S. Ct. 1889, 1929 (2024) (Jackson, J., concurring).

-cited by Bianchi v. Brown, 111 F.4th 438 (4th Cir. 2024) (en banc).

-cited by Ocean State Tactical, LLC v. Rhode Island, 99 F.4th 38 (1st Cir. Mar. 7, 2024).

-cited by Lara v. Comm’r Pennsylvania State Police, 91 F.4th 122 (3d Cir. 2024).

Jenia Iontcheva Turner, Interstate Conflict and Cooperation in Criminal Cases: An American Perspective, 4 European Criminal Law Review 115, 117 (2014).

-cited by White v. Cnty. of Suffolk, No. 20CV1501RERJMW, 2024 WL 1532331, at *6 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 9, 2024).

In the Spotlight: Faculty Expertise in National Media

The Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

Across the country, thousands of newly arrested people languish in jail without seeing a lawyer or a judge. In some places, people wait weeks or months for a lawyer’s help. The Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center is tackling this crisis. The Center’s national Day One campaign champions transformative change in the earliest stages of the criminal process. With a particular focus on mid-sized and rural legal systems, the campaign employs a wide range of advocacy strategies to promote:

First appearance in court within 24 hours of arrest
A lawyer’s assistance before, and during, initial appearance
Continuous and active representation until a case is resolved.

To date, the Day One campaign has achieved substantial Day One reforms in Mississippi, North Dakota, Kansas, Texas, and Arkansas.

Criminal Justice Reform Workshop Series

The Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center regularly hosts the Criminal Justice Reform Workshop Series, featuring top scholars and experts from around the country.

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