Criminal Justice Institute - Faculty

Dr. Gavin Clarkson joined the faculty at the University of Houston Law Center in 2008. Before joining the UHLC faculty, Dr. Clarkson was a professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information, with appointments in the Law School and Native American Studies. He earned a doctorate from the Harvard Business School in technology and operations management and was a cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School. Among his other law courses, Dr. Clarkson teaches Federal Indian Law. An enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Dr. Clarkson is the nation’s leading scholar on tribal finance.

Dr. Clarkson has grants from both the National Science Foundation and the University of Houston to study criminal justice data sharing between tribal, state, and federal law enforcement authorities. Part of that research is an empirical study that seeks to demonstrate the jurisdictional void that allows non-Indian offenders to commit crimes on a reservation with a much higher probability of avoiding prosecution than anywhere else in the United States.

John Jay Douglass served for over 30 years in the Army as a member of the Judge Advocate Generals Corps and completed his service as Commandant of the Judge Advocate Generals School at the University of Virginia. For 20 years, Professor Douglass served as the Dean of the National College of District Attorneys—a group that provides continuing education and training to state and local prosecutors. He has taught Criminal Law for many years. He has published extensively on prosecutorial ethics and other issues relating to the role of the prosecutor. He has also served in the American Bar Association as a member of the Council of the Criminal Justice Section. His international work has included advising prosecutors in Russia and the Ukraine under the AID program.

David Dow directs the Texas Innocence Network. Under his supervision, students have investigated hundreds of claims of innocence and obtained the release of one innocent person thus far. He also teaches a course on the death penalty. He has handled more than fifty appeals, including more than 25 death penalty appeals. Professor Dow has written extensively on the death penalty, equal protection, and federal jurisdiction, among other subjects. He is a frequent contributor to the Houston Chronicle editorial page as well as other newspapers nationally.

Meredith J. Duncan joined the faculty in 1998. Two of the courses she teaches are Criminal Law and Professional Responsibility. Professor Duncan has developed a specialty in the intersection of the two areas of law, focusing on the law relating to the liability of criminal defense attorneys. As a law student, she published a comment on battered women who kill their abusers.

Adam Gershowitz joined the Law Center faculty in 2009 after teaching at South Texas College of Law.  He previously served as a law clerk to Judge Robert B. King of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and worked on white collar crime matters at Covington & Burling in Washington DC.  Professor Gershowitz has taught classes on criminal law, criminal procedure, Texas criminal procedure, and capital punishment.  He has written extensively on prosecutorial misconduct, indigent defense reform, and capital punishment.

Leslie Griffin came to the University of Houston Law Center in 2002 as the first Larry and Joanne Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics. She served as Assistant Counsel in the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates professional misconduct by federal prosecutors. Professor Griffin has taught prosecutorial ethics as a visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Her ethics publications include "The Lawyer's Dirty Hands" and "The Prudent Prosecutor," both in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics.

Ellen Marrus came to the Law Center in 1995 after practicing as a public defender in California.She presently teaches criminal courses in Criminal Procedure as well as Juvenile Law, and her scholarship is focused in the areas of criminal procedure and juvenile law. Professor Marrus teaches in the Criminal Clinic on a regular basis and directs the Southwest Regional Juvenile Defender Center.

Gerry Moohr teaches courses in Criminal Law and White Collar Crime, among her other courses. Professor Moohr is one of the leading national authorities of the federal mail fraud statute and other manifestations of criminal fraud. Her most recent work analyzes criminal laws that deal with misappropriation of business information, trade secrets, and copyright infringement.

Laura Oren joined the faculty in 1986. In addition to her constitutional law and family law courses, she teaches a course on Section 1983 in which includes discussion of civil rights lawsuit against police officers and police departments. Her publications include an article about the wrongfully "adopted" children of political dissents who had been killed and were reported as "disappeared" in Argentina. It was published it the Harvard Human Rights Journal in 2001.

Jordan Paust joined the faculty in 1975. He teaches International Criminal Law, among his other courses in international law. Professor Paust has distinguished himself as a leader in local, national and international organizations dealing with International Law, Human Rights, and International Criminal Law. He has chaired the Committee on International Law and the Use of Force of the ABA. He has also served on the President's Committee and Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and is currently Co-Chair of the ASIL's International Criminal Law Interest Group. He is a nationally renowned author in international criminal law, having published innumerable articles and a leading treatise with Prof. Bassiouni and others entitled International Criminal Law (2d ed. 2000).

Robert Schuwerk has taught Criminal Law for many years. His area of specialization within criminal law is sentencing. He is also a noted scholar in the area of professional responsibility.

Sandy Guerra Thompson has been a member of the faculty since 1990. Before joining the faculty, she worked as a prosecutor in the New York County D.A.’s Office in Manhattan, doing both trial and appellate work. She has taught courses in criminal law, criminal procedure, sentencing, federal criminal law, evidence, prisoners’ rights, and criminal law issues in U.S.-Mexico relations. She has written extensively on civil asset forfeiture and sentencing, as well as on other issues in criminal procedure and criminal law. She is a former chair of the AALS Section on Criminal Justice and a member of the Board of Advisors of the ALI’s drafting project entitled, “Model Penal Code: Sentencing”. She was awarded the 2003 Teaching Excellence Award by the University of Houston.